Indian Summer
by ShadowedStar
Summary: A long time passed between the Tucks' escape and Jesse's return, and history swept all of them up in its stream. Where were they, what were they doing, and does the story really end with Winnie choosing to die and Jesse facing eternity alone? JxW
1. Prologue: Winnie Speaks

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: Although I've made quite a few changes, this is based mostly off of the movieverse, where Winnie was around 15 when she met the Tucks, and where her gravestone read "Winifred Foster Jackson 1899-1999 Dear Wife Dear Mother". This is because I don't really think a ten year old girl would have bonded so intensely with a 17 year old boy, and I certainly don't think they'd have fallen in love. I'm using the headstone dates to develop a rough chronology of what Winnie was up to during this time, but be warned that the years might not match up exactly to the ages I intended. It won't hurt the plot though, so long as you aren't too nitpicky ). The dual timelines won't exactly match in the beginning, either. This is because Jesse's interacting with major world events, while Winnie's timeline is more focused on her life, since women were kept in the home for the majority of the 20th century and men, well, weren't. Oh, and the prologue is the only section that will be written from a 1st person perspective. Two more things and I'm done: I really suck at updating regularly, so please don't ester me about that. This is my first _Tuck Everlasting_ fic, so bear with me. Reviews would be appreciated. …Which should just about cover every major point I wanted to make before beginning. That being said, here goes nothing.

Prologue – Date unclear

All around the world, Indian summers are viewed as something magical, something extraordinary. For a week or two during the frigid chill of late autumn, summer returns in all its glory, warming the world and giving us hope that the warmth will return, and it is this hope we take into the frozen winter, this hope that sustains us through the seemingly endless cold and damp. Considering that, it's no wonder that Indian summers are hailed around the world as a time of uncanny happenings, a time when strange things can happen and seem logical.

I didn't meet the Tucks during Indian summer, however; I met them when summer was in full bloom, enchanting the world with its warmth and beauty. They enchanted me with the way they went about life, never rushing, always taking their time to do things properly. It seemed to me at the time that Time didn't exist for them, which, as I later found out, was all too true. But on one of those magical nights, after Jesse and I had finished dancing beneath the stars and collapsed, laughing, to gaze into the fire; one night after I had learned their secret, he told me the last detail of their transformation: they had found the spring of immortality during an Indian summer.

Now, I don't presume to suggest that it was the weather that had any effect on what would happen to the Tucks, but I do know that Indian summers are a time for unusual happenings. I, myself, have lived through enough of them to know that claims of strange, almost eerie happenings during Indian summers aren't entirely unfounded, although the connections may be tenuous at best and damn near impossible to prove. Yet, eerie and strange though they may be, they are undoubtedly enchanted times. There are numerous incredible, awe-inspiring things I have lived through during Indian summers. But I won't delve into those just yet, for I'd hate to ruin the tale I have in store for you. Let us just say that the magic of Indian summers has had a profound effect on my fate and destiny, and I would warn you not to underestimate it.

Besides, you never know what magic there is to be found on a given day, and surely the wisdom of legend of myriad cultures around the world is not to be discredited so easily.

After all, nearly every culture tells a tale of a fountain of youth, and one fateful summer, I met a family who had found it. The Tucks changed my life forever, and, I'd like to think, for better. There are no doubts in my mind that my life was improved by my short interaction with them during my fifteenth year, and were I to be given the opportunity to change anything in my life, I would choose only to extend the time that I spent with them. They taught me many lessons that I would never have otherwise learned: lessons about life, and love, and what it means to truly live and love. Of course, it would be many years before I fully understood the depth of those lessons…


	2. Ch 1: Winnie's 17th Birthday

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section. And I know Winnie is kind of a whiny brat in this, but bear with me. She'll get better and less annoying, I promise, and besides, how happy would you be if you'd lost your first love the way she did?

November 11, 1916

_It was thundering and lightning, and the air had the faint acrid tang that always preceded a major storm in Treegap. Tears streamed down Winifred Foster's face as she clung to her first love, willing Time to stop but knowing it would continue and wrench him away from her. _

"_I can't go without you!" Jesse said softly. She kissed him and clung to him tighter._

"_You have to," she whispered, tears thickening her voice._

"_Go back to the spring, drink from it! When it's safe I'll come back for you," Jesse promised, stroking her face._

"_Will you?" Winnie asked, half afraid of the answer. She wanted to go with him, but she knew that she couldn't._

"_I have to show you the Eiffel Tower, don't I?" he teased gently, and she knew he was only trying to ease the pain of their separation by joking. _

"_1,652 steps to the top of it!" Winnie whispered back, prolonging the moment in the same way as he was._

"_Winnie, until we're together again…wake up with the dawn," Jesse whispered, his voice intense, and his face contorting as he fought not to cry._

_It was all she could do to nod and say "I will" as the tears threatened to overcome her again._

"_We gotta go, before it's too late!" Miles interrupted, and Winnie and Jesse steeled themselves against what was coming. Angus Tuck lashed the horses gently, and the wagon lurched forward. Jesse ran to leap onto the back, turning to face Winnie where she stood, her nightdress whipped by the wind._

"_Winnie Foster! I will love you until the day I die!" he shouted to her, his voice finally breaking, as the horses began to run, drawing the wagon and him away from her…_

Winnie Foster woke with a start, tears trickling down her face. It had been almost two years since that fateful evening, and she had dreamt about it every night.

"I'm a mess," she muttered, wiping the tears off of her cheeks as best she could before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "I can't even keep myself from crying about things I can't change!"

Outside of her window, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, painting the sky in the palest shades of peach and gold. She had kept her promise to rise with the dawn for the past two years, so that when Jesse finally returned for her she'd be able to tell him she'd kept it. Jesse. The thought of him started her crying again.

"Stop that, Winifred Foster," she ordered herself as she climbed out of bed and began to prepare for the day. "Seventeen years old and still crying like a baby! What would Jesse think if he could see you now?" she rebuked herself silently, but she couldn't shut off the little voice inside her head that told her he would care that she was crying, that he would understand and kiss her tears away and comfort her because he loved her.

She dressed quickly – it was always quick to dress when she didn't bother with her corsets – and opened her journal. She had been writing in it every morning since she helped Mae and Angus Tuck escape the jail. She had promised herself that she would write in it every morning until Jesse came back. But this morning, she couldn't find the will to write – she was too distracted.

_It's my seventeenth birthday today_, she thought, tapping her pen restlessly against the creamy page. Dark blue drops splattered across the page, but she didn't even notice, so lost was she in her thoughts. _He wanted me to drink from the spring, and I still haven't done it. When I started this journal, I thought I'd wait two years, until I was seventeen like him. Two years seems an awfully long wait…an awfully long wait, that is, until the choice you were postponing presents itself to you at the end of them and you still have no idea what to choose. When you still haven't even thought much about it._ A wave of guilt washed over her. She had promised to wait for him. He had promised to return, but only when it was safe. Memories overtook her…the waterfall…the meadow…dancing around the fire…She sighed sharply, setting her pen down. Few as the memories were, at least she had them. They would have to suffice until Jesse returned. But that still didn't solve her dilemma – she needed to make a choice about the spring water.

She looked around her room, feeling suddenly claustrophobic. The walls of her room seemed to contract inward, trapping her like an animal in a cage, and she couldn't stay there any longer. She laced her boots onto her feet and crept stealthily out of the house, careful not to wake the other members of the household.

The air outside was crisp and clear. A few birds twittered faintly in the trees overhead, and a light breeze rustled the leaves against one another, causing the dew drops to fall from the trees like sparkling rain. It was late fall, but an Indian summer had snuck up on them, warming the days even as the trees flamed forth in brilliant red and gold around her, dropping their leaves to crunch softly underfoot. Not for the first time, Winnie wished Jesse could be walking with her through the autumn glory of the wood, even though he had doubtlessly seen it awash with color uncountable times before.

The walk to the old ash tree at the fount of the spring was a moderate one, but Winnie had traveled it enough times that she was confident she could make it in her sleep. She focused instead on the sensations that went along with walking during the early morning in Indian summer: the leaves flaming in the golden light of early morning, light sparking off of dew drops into arcing rainbows, the soft thud of her boots on the earth and the gentle crunch of leaves. More and more birds were waking and beginning to tend to their business, believing the seeming reprieve from cold weather that Indian summers held out to tantalize nature and civilization alike. Winnie got so caught up in the world around her that the trip seemed much shorter, and she jumped slightly, startled, at the sight of the old ash tree with a large T carved in the trunk. She could hear the soft burbling of the spring as she approached the tree. She couldn't help it – she reached out and traced her fingers over the T carved deep into the living wood.

"Oh, Jesse," she whispered softly, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the rough, cool bark. Now that she was here, she knew she couldn't drink from the spring. Difficult though her parents and family were, she knew she couldn't leave them – not even for her first, and likely only, love. She leaned against the tree for support, sinking into a seated position against it, trying to feel some sort of connection through it to the people who had touched her so deeply. This time she willingly called up the memories, seeking to banish them, one by one, into her subconscious where she hoped they would trouble her no longer. She knew that unless she did this, she would always be tempted to drink the water, tempted to join in his immortal fate against her better judgment. Jesse may love her, but Angus and Miles had made it as clear as day that their fate was not something to be envied. She let her mind drift, conjuring up what images it would…

An afternoon spent climbing Jesse's Eiffel Tower, a mountain, under the warm sun; an afternoon spent talking and laughing followed by a breathtaking view, banished from her mind. She would never see the real Eiffel Tower with him, nor would she climb his again. His courage, born out of the knowledge that he couldn't die, had made her strong, made her dare things she would never, could never, dare alone. Climbing that mountain had been first among them, and the memory still made her heart race with excitement at the knowledge that she had succeeded.

Her mind turned to her first impromptu swimming lesson, where he had goaded her into the water with gentle mockery. She had been terrified of drowning, but once in the water, the feel of floating and the knowledge that he was keeping her safe made her relax against him. "Winnie Foster, I'll never let you go," he had whispered to her, spinning slowly in the water with her in his arms. She had never felt that secure before or since, and she knew that she would never find that feeling again if she lived to the end of the world as long as she was without Jesse. She banished the memory firmly from her mind. She would just have to find other memories to cherish, memories which didn't make her feel bereaved whenever she contemplated them.

Her most precious memory, that of dancing around the fire with him before collapsing down to the ground where they cuddled together before the fire, just before their idyll was destroyed with the revelation of the Tucks' secret, surfaced. She cried as she recalled her first kiss with Jesse Tuck, how it had made her heart race and caused all sorts of strange feelings to rush through her at once. How it was then that she realized she loved him and he her. She let herself relive it mentally, but when she tried to steel herself to banish it, found it impossible.

"I need these memories," she whispered and buried her face in her hands, allowing herself to state the unspeakable. She didn't want to need the memories. She wanted to be done with them, to move on. Her life would go on, regardless of the memories she carried around inside her, and these memories could only hurt her in a life doomed to end without Jesse. She knew it would be many years before he could return; much as she hoped that he would be back soon, she also knew that her hopes had little grounding in reality. "I can't drink the water, but I can't forget about it either," she whispered to the woods, "but I don't think I can handle that. I'm not that strong!" But the forest offered no answer to her, only birdsong and the rustle of leaves in a warming breeze. Winnie Foster dozed off under the tree as the sun climbed higher in the sky.

A sharp snap startled Winnie out of her dreamless doze. The sun was beginning to sink, and the light was shifting to the golden light of early evening. She heard the soft crunching of footsteps in the forest, and dared for a moment to allow herself to hope-

"Winnie?"

Her heart sank. It was her father come looking for her, not Jesse or one of the other Tucks.

"Yes, father?" she asked, struggling to her feet.

"What in heavens are you doing out here? Your mother was frantic."

"I-I needed to think."

"About what?"

"Anything."

"About responsibility, more like. You're seventeen years old, now, Winnie. For heaven's sake, learn to act like it. You can't keep running off whenever it suits you."

"Yes, father. I'm sorry."

"Yes, well, come along now. You missed dinner, so you'll just have to manage without it tonight."

"Yes, father."

"And just look at you! You're filthy! Winifred, what is the matter with you? And why do you look as though you've been crying?"

"I don't know, father," was the only response she could think of to give.

They walked in silence back to the mansion, neither of them able to think of anything to say to the other. Though they each held affection for the other, they had no common ground. Theirs was a problem of utter incomprehension: Mr. Foster could never figure out why his daughter was so prone to dreams and spontaneity, and Winnie often thought that to live a life like his was no better than a living death, overly structured as she perceived it to be.

They reached the mansion just as night was beginning to settle its cloak around the world and the first diamond points of starlight peeked out from the ebony velvet of the sky.

"Good heavens, Winifred," her mother clucked upon seeing her, "the least you could have done was keep yourself clean! Come along," she took her daughter by the elbow and led her inside. "I don't know what you're thinking, running off like that! You should know better by know – seventeen years old, almost a lady! If you could only learn to act like one, we might be able to actually present you to society. Off with that dress, it's completely ruined, and scrub your face. Have you been crying?" she asked suddenly, her sharp tone softening almost imperceptibly.

Winnie thought of lying to her mother, but then thought better of it. "Yes, mother."

"Well, why in heaven's name is that? Oh, don't tell me. You don't want to grow up. Honestly, Winnie, do you think anyone does? No. We don't. But that's just the nature of life and you're going to have to learn to deal with it, just as you'll have to finally learn some responsibility. You can't keep running off on a whim! The last time you did this, you ended up kidnapped by that dreadful family! When I think of what could have happened to you – oh, but let's not dwell on the past," Mrs. Foster said, clearly seeing that her train of thought was distressing her daughter, although not for the reasons she imagined. "The point is, Winifred, you're almost a woman now. And you're going to have to learn to behave like one. Now, a young man is going to call tomorrow. He's a potential suitor, so I expect you to behave appropriately, am I understood?" Winnie nodded mutely. "Good. He's a decent young man, from a good family, and I expect that you'll show good etiquette. Maybe now you can learn to take your place as a lady in society. And if you don't learn now, marriage will certainly teach you."

Winnie's stomach froze at the mention of the word.

"Oh, what is it now?" her mother asked abruptly. Her tone clearly revealed her to be exasperated, and Winnie's courage nearly failed her. But there was something she needed to know…

"Mother…when you married…did you, I mean, do you love father?" she asked quietly.

"Love? We don't marry for love, Winifred. Love is for children and nursery tales."

"So you've never loved him?"

"I respect him, surely. And there is some mutual affection there – he's been kind to me, treated me well all of these years. But love? Love is a myth, Winifred. It doesn't exist, save perhaps when one is young and frivolous. Even if it did exist, love would be fleeting, an unfit basis for a lifetime partnership such as marriage. Don't get your hopes up for it, Winnie, you'll only be disappointed."

Winnie bit her lip and stared at the ground. She began to wonder if she shouldn't have drunk the spring water after all.

She changed into her nightdress, and threw herself heavily into bed where she found herself too exhausted to cry again. Now that she had experienced love, she couldn't imagine living the rest of her life without it, and the thought was enough to strike despair into her young heart.

"Jesse," she whispered faintly into the night, and fell asleep to dream of him.


	3. Ch 2: Jesse's Doomed Voyage

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section. Backtracking a few months to catch up with a major historical event that I thought the Tucks might see. I plan on traumatizing Jesse slightly throughout this, since he was pretty sheltered due to his being perpetually seventeen, so that's the real reason behind this semi-arbitrary decision to toss them into this period of history. Details about any historical events Jesse participates in are as accurate as Wikipedia and my advanced placement history courses are, so there. )

May 6, 1916

Jesse Tuck couldn't concentrate on anything, which was well enough considering that they were in transit, on a ship, heading back to Europe, and there was nothing to concentrate on. He looked over at Miles, who was reading in his bunk, and then across to his parents, who were each involved in quiet tasks. Mae was knitting, and Tuck was carving a piece of wood from the old ash tree by the spring. Jesse was too restless to do any of those things, even if he'd had the desire to, so he climbed out of his bunk in steerage and walked up to the deck.

He could hear the faint strains of music from the first class lounge, violins and cellos crying softly in some minor-key melody that tugged at his heart. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a little book he'd made of paper scraps, and a pencil, and began to sketch her. "I wish I had a photograph of her," he muttered to himself as he struggled to get the fall of her curls onto her shoulders just right.

It was late evening, and dusk was just ending. A warm orange glow still lingered over the water, but other than that, night had fallen. A salty breeze whisked over the deck, pulling at his hair and clothes. Had Winnie been there, he knew, she'd have invited him to dance to the merry tune the musicians at the Seamen's Charities Fund Concert were just now beginning to play. He sighed, remembering their first impromptu dance…

It had been so hard for her to get him to join in. He'd just wanted to watch her twirling about, that beautiful smile brightening her face and making her seem even more beautiful, if that were possible. But she'd persuaded him, and they'd spun about beneath the open sky, celebrating God-only-knew-what, joyful to be young and alive and together and free. It was the first time since he'd drunk the water that he didn't feel it to be a curse that robbed him of his ability to feel joy in the here and now. It was the first time he'd pondered eternity not in negative terms, but in hopeful ones.

Winnie understood his secret, and she loved him anyway. Surely that was worth whatever price they'd have to pay down the road? Surely love was worth it?

"Odd, the Captain had the lifeboats swung out," Tuck said, joining Jesse at the prow. "I wonder if he's expecting trouble?"

"Could be. Britain is at war with Germany, after all. I'd hate to see what one of those U-boats could do to this ship," Jesse replied idly, watching the sun finish sinking below the waves. They fell into silence for several minutes.

"What are you thinking, son?" Tuck asked suddenly, startling Jesse out of his thoughts.

"What do you think? I'm thinking about Winnie," he answered quietly.

Tuck sighed heavily, putting a hand on his son's shoulder.

"Promise me something Jesse? Promise me you won't be hurt if Winnie decides not to drink the water," he said gently.

"Why wouldn't she?!" Jesse asked, suddenly feeling desperate without quite knowing why.

"Because I told her not to," Tuck answered softly.

"You did what? How could you?! We love each other, Tuck! We're going to be together forever!" Jesse burst out, suddenly feeling helpless. Thoughts raced through his mind – he had to go back now, he had to go with her to drink the water, then whisk her away with him. He couldn't lose her, not when she was the only one who made him feel alive.

Who made him feel at all.

"Jesse, look at me. Jesse, would you really be so selfish as to expect that she give up everything she has on this beautiful earth to traverse it until Judgment Day with you? Would you really put her through the pain of knowing that everyone she had ever loved besides you had died without her, and that she would never be able to see them again even before they died because our secret could be revealed? Would you really want to put her through that?"

"Well, no, but, Tuck, don't you see-"

"See what, Jesse?"

"I love her, Tuck," he whispered, his tone pleading with Tuck to understand his emotions.

"I know, Jesse. But the pain you're feeling now at the thought of losing her – don't you think that that pain would be even more intense to her when she did lose her loved ones? Yes, you love her, Jesse, and that's a wonderful thing. And she loves you, which is also wonderful. But can you really ask her to endure the loss of all she knows and loves just so you can be with her forever?"

Jesse was silent. He couldn't answer. He'd never thought about it in those terms, and couldn't bring himself to now – he was too emotionally tied up in the answer, and he knew that didn't lend itself to clear thinking. He trusted Tuck, but found himself desperately praying that Tuck was wrong. That Winnie would drink the water and never have a cause to regret it – that he would be enough to keep her happy through the centuries they spent together, forever young.

Tuck squeezed Jesse's shoulder reassuringly.

"There's one more thing, son."

"Yeah, Tuck?"

"You know we can't be recognized."

"Yes."

"You can't go back for her until we can be sure that anyone, anyone at all, who might possibly recognize us besides Winnie is no longer in Treegap."

"How long will that be, Tuck?" Jesse asked, feeling his heart sink into his stomach like a stone. Tuck gave him a sympathetic glance.

"At least until the turn of the century, Jess. We can't go back until the end of the 1900's."

"Are you kidding me? You want me to leave Winnie, all alone and seventeen, feeling abandoned for a century? I can't do that, Tuck!"

"Then I will. We can't be discovered, Jess. We can't. Now I know you love her, but if she drinks the water, you'll have centuries more to make it up to her. She'll understand. She'll know why you can't go back for her – Winnie's a smart girl. And if she doesn't drink the water, well…give her a chance to have a normal life. Let her move on – if she doesn't drink the water, she won't be able to stay with you anyway. So let her go; I'm not saying don't love her, but understand that she can't live her life enslaved to a memory."

"Tuck…"

"You know I'm right, Jesse. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but it is what it is."

Jesse's brain was a firestorm of emotion and frantic thoughts. Tuck was asking him to leave Winnie alone, alone to feel abandoned and unloved, struggling with the idea of immortality all by herself; he was asking him to take it on faith that she would drink the water, and to understand that if she didn't, he might never see her again and he should think it for the best. For her. But the mere thought of Winnie being with someone else, someone raised in that stiff society of hers where nobody loved or lived, someone who could never love her as he did, made him want to jump off the ship and swim back to Treegap that very moment. He didn't. They were too close to England. And, war-torn though it was in its conflict with Germany, it was a far sight safer for his family than the United States was.

Besides: somewhere, deep inside him, he knew Tuck was right. And he knew he couldn't risk betraying their secret just to go back for Winnie. Tuck was right, but that didn't mean Jesse was going to like it. He nodded his assent to his father.

"I guess you're right, Tuck."

"I'm sorry, Jesse."

"I'll live," he muttered, and suddenly the full truth of that statement hit him. He would "live" in the strictest sense of the word, but he wouldn't be living. Not until he and Winnie were together again.

"Here," Tuck said, pressing a small figurine into Jesse's hand. "I thought you might want this."

"What is it?"

"Look." Angus Tuck gave his son a sympathetic smile and went below decks, leaving Jesse to his thoughts.

Jesse opened his hand hesitantly, and knew it was what his father had been carving only minutes beforehand. The piece of ash had been transformed into a three-inch tall figure of Winnie, her skirt swirling around her and one foot raised as she twirled about, caught forever in time in this little carving. Her features were almost perfectly detailed, to the point where looking at the little wooden piece made Jesse's breath catch in his throat as he looked at it.

"Winnie Foster," Jesse whispered to the wind, hoping it would carry his message to her as he wandered halfway across the world, "I will love you until the day I die. Hold on for me – hold on so I can see you one more time."

He wandered back below deck and threw himself into his bunk, intending to sleep all the way to England. In his mind's eye, Winnie was dancing.

"Jesse, wake up!" Tuck hissed, shaking him awake.

"What time is it, Tuck?" he asked blearily. The noise of rushing water forced him to alertness. He'd always been a deep sleeper, something which frequently led to his confusion as it did now. "What's happening?"

"It's 2:10. Something hit the ship," Tuck said. "We're taking on water."

"Wait, what?! What hit the ship? What's going on, Tuck?" Jesse felt disoriented. A loud crash sounded somewhere below them in the ship's belly; it sounded like something had exploded.

"Just get on the deck before we have to explain why we were able to survive underwater," Miles snapped. Jesse quickly checked his pockets to make sure the figurine of Winnie was there, and raced to the deck as quickly as he could. The bright sunlight made his eyes burn after the dank dimness of their steerage-class bunks, but he forced himself to take stock of the situation. People were gathered around, bewildered at what was going on. The Tucks didn't see much point in milling about like confused sheep, so they stood in the middle of the deck, where they could see just about everything that was transpiring.

"The ship is sinking!" one hysterical young woman cried out. "We've been torpedoed; we're all going to die!" She was sobbing into a handkerchief as her two small daughters clung to her skirts, and a man who appeared to be her husband tried to hush her.

"Now, Mary, no need to get hysterical," he muttered uneasily, casting nervous glances at the other passengers, who were beginning to stare. "I'm sure the captain has it all under control! He's been sailing these seas longer than you've been alive, dear; he's bound to know a thing or two about sailing and ships."

"Attention, passengers!" The captain shouted, striding onto the deck. In his uniform, he had a very commanding presence, and Jesse noted that everyone immediately bowed to his authority. "There's no easy way to tell you this. The Germans have hit us, and the _Lusitania _is going down. Now, don't panic! We can deal with this calmly and rationally and save as many of ourselves as possible, or we can panic and face a senseless loss of life. Now, I want all the women and children to make their way to the lifeboats as quickly and orderly as possible. Once we've loaded them and gotten them to safety, then we'll start loading the rest of you."

"Captain Turner!" one of the young deckhands cried out, "she's listing too hard to starboard! It's going to be hard to load the boats on that side!"

Captain Turner stood there, still as stone for a moment. Jesse, immortal though he was, felt a very mortal shiver crawl up his spine.

_These people are all going to die_, he thought. _They're all going to die, and for what? Military superiority? Economic power? A political point? How can that be worth this?_

"Tuck," he whispered, "is there anything we can do?" He felt desperate, and for the first time since they had fled Treegap in late August of 1914, his thoughts didn't dwell on Winnie. "We have to do something!"

"Do whatever you can, but make sure it won't give us away," Tuck whispered back. "It's not that uncommon for farm boys to be strong swimmers, after all." He gave Jesse a wink, which somehow calmed him. Tuck was on his side, and together, the four of them might be able to make a difference unobtrusively.

"Load the boats. Abandon ship! We're only eight miles off the coast of Ireland, so help should arrive quickly. Move!" Captain Turner shouted, giving his final order as captain of the _Lusitania._

The deck was swaying beneath them, making it hard to keep their balance. Women and children were crowding around the lifeboats, swarming into them fearfully as quickly as possible. It was then that Jesse saw what a disaster this would be.

The boats on port side were almost impossible to touch down on the water, due to the heavy listing of the ship. They were full almost to bursting, certainly over full capacity, and they were crashing against the steel hull and iron rivets of the doomed ship _Lusitania_. The starboard boats fared little better. The list made them difficult to board, but, in their desperation, the people managed to get in – but once the boats were lowered to the water, they fell unevenly, taking on water and capsizing. Some even overturned in the air, spilling the people to the icy waves below. People were struggling helplessly in the water as the ship threatened to fall over on its side, which caused the few boats that didn't sink upon touchdown to overturn on the waves the ship's list could only augment. Jesse could hear screams all around him, pounding in his ears, making his heart race with fear despite the sure knowledge that he himself would survive to tell the tale. Something was pounding the boards beneath his feet. With a sudden shiver, Jesse realized that not everyone had made it to the deck: some people would be forever entombed in the hold and belly of the ship they had trusted to get them safely to England.

A great cracking noise drew Jesse's attention from the carnage before him, as he saw the bow of the ship crack off and crash into the bottom, pitching the stern into the air.

Everyone still on the deck went flying.

Even Jesse screamed at that. Adrenaline coursed through his veins for the first time he could remember, inspiring him to true fear. He hit the water like a hammer, but righted himself in time to see a chain reaction of exploding boilers going off, one after the other in a terrifyingly rapid succession. The other passengers never even had a chance. The explosions in the boilers caused the third smoke funnel to collapse, which in a chain of its own took the other funnels down. The wreck of the ship sank beneath the waves.

It all took less than twenty minutes.

Jesse treaded water until he felt the ship settle at the bottom through the shockwaves it sent rippling through the water, and saw the backdraft of bodies, debris, and water come rushing up. The only sounds left were the gentle lapping of waves, and the screams and sobs of those who were still alive. Jesse did a quick tally. Only six of the forty-eight lifeboats had managed to succeed at their purpose. This meant that well over 1,000 of the ship's 1,962 passengers and crew were certainly in the water.

"Mae! Miles! Tuck!" he shouted, knowing they would have to hear him, knowing that they were still as alive as he. But he heard no response. He swam towards the greatest gathering of wreckage and people, hoping to be of some assistance.

All he found were corpses. He knew there were living people around, he could hear them. He just couldn't see them to find them and help them. He started swimming toward one of the capsized lifeboats which was floating upside-down. If he could turn it over and get into it, he could start to help people, could find Tuck and Miles and Mae.

It felt like forever before rescue crews came from the mainland to help them. By that point, most of the people in the water had drowned or developed hypothermia. Jesse had managed to get a handful of people, most of them young adults and children, into his lifeboat. He felt exhausted and drained, guilty and ashamed at his inability to save more lives.

"Young man?" and officer prodded at him gently.

"Hnnngh," Jesse moaned, looking blearily at him.

"I need to know your name. To check against the passenger list. To figure out who…who we lost." Withheld tears thickened the man's already heavy Irish accent, and it took Jesse a moment to figure out what he wanted.

"Jack Smith," he muttered, blurting the first coherent name that sprang into his mind. He couldn't be identified by name, and at least he was lucid enough to know that, he thought blurrily before returning to the dark abyss in his mind. He withdrew into himself, hardly noticing where he was going. When he was reunited with his family, he could barely even summon up words to greet them. He fell asleep in their rented wagon after they reached the mainland.

He was still plagued by nightmares. Nightmares of people screaming for help, people he couldn't see…

"Jesse, Jesse wake up!" Mae's voice pierced through the haze surrounding his brain.

"Mae?" He started to cry. "I tried to help them, Mae. I tried to find people and get them into a boat, give them a chance…"

"I know, Jesse. You did good. You did real good. But you couldn't have saved them all, even if you didn't have to worry about our secret," she whispered, stroking his hair soothingly.

"I tried, Ma, I tried…" he muttered, repeating it over and over. It was the only thing he could cling to that would ground him in this new state he had been thrust into where nothing was familiar. For the first time, he understood loss.

"You can't blame yourself, Jesse," Miles said, coming into the room. "It's likely we would have died too, had things been different."

"Miles is right," Angus piped up from the corner of the room where he had been sitting and reading. "There was nothing more that could be done."

Jesse nodded mutely, then climbed out of his bed and wandered outside. Apparently he had been out of it for a while – long enough that his family had moved them all into a little cabin in the countryside. The stars glowed gently overhead, and a light breeze rustled through the grass.

_How can people do such horrible things to other people?!_ It was beyond his comprehension.

"You alright, Jess?" Miles' voice behind him made him jump slightly in startlement.

"How…how can people do that?" Jesse asked, bewildered, struggling with fresh memories of the carnage.

"I don't know, little brother. For all the wars I've fought in, I still can't figure out why people would do that to each other."

"Those were innocent people, Miles."

"Innocent people are usually the ones who suffer from war."

"I just can't understand it."

"I don't think you're supposed to. I don't think there's anything to understand."

The brothers fell into silence, unable to think of anything more to say, unwilling to be alone or leave the other alone.

They didn't know they'd be drafted into service shortly in defense of Great Britain and her Allies.


	4. Ch 3: Meeting Mr Jackson

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along. 

Notes: See first section. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. And the plot will start picking up soon…I really feel like it's dragging, but since I'm basing this off of the movie ending, Winnie needs to end up with a Mr. Jackson. Here, she meets him. Enjoy.

* * *

November 12, 1916

"Winifred Foster, stand still and quit fighting me," Mrs. Foster muttered as she and Winnie went through their typical morning ritual where she tried to lace Winnie tightly into a corset and Winnie did her best to allow herself as much breathing room as she could.

"I'm not fighting you, mother," Winnie replied, yielding slightly. She gasped as her mother tugged especially viciously on the laces, forcing air out of her lungs.

"Listen to me, Winifred," Mrs. Foster muttered as she finished tying off the laces, "Alexander Jackson can take care of you. You'll never have to worry about anything with him, and you'll find your quality of life vastly improved."

"What if I don't care about that?" Winnie muttered under her breath. Mrs. Foster heard her, but didn't comment. Winnie knew that she was just taking advantage of the low tone she had used to not reply. She looked outside of the window, to where the morning sun was bathing everything in gentle light. It looked like a magical day, but she would be stuck sitting in the parlor all afternoon, "entertaining" some man she couldn't care less for at all. Some man who might want to marry her when all she wanted was to run off with Jesse Tuck.

_Stop thinking those thoughts, Winnie Foster_, she thought to herself severely. _Jesse isn't coming back for a long time. And even if he were to come back today, you know you can't run off with him anyway! They'd never stop looking for you, and when they found you, the Tucks' secret would be revealed and then where would you be? No, you made your decision yesterday. You won't drink the water. You can't. But that doesn't mean that you have to forget about love. You'll just have to find a way to love the man you marry is all_. Somehow, the thoughts left her feeling icy inside, not comforted at all.

"Come along now, Winnie," Mrs. Foster said, cutting into her thoughts. "Mr. Jackson is downstairs waiting."

Squaring her shoulders, armed with the thought that at least she had once experienced love, and firm in her resolve to make the best of her life, Winnie followed her mother into the parlor.

A tall young man was seated by the fireplace, neatly dressed in a dark blue suit. His dark brown hair was neatly combed, and his moustache looked as though it had been freshly trimmed and combed.

"Mrs. Foster, Miss Foster," he said in a low, genteel voice, sweeping into a bow. "It is my honor."

"Pleased to meet you," Winnie said, sharply prompted by her mother's elbow in her side.

"Yes, can I get you anything to drink, Alexander?" Mrs. Foster asked. "Tea, coffee, hot chocolate?"

"Tea would be marvelous," he replied. Mrs. Foster nodded and went in search of a servant, leaving Winnie and Alexander alone. Winnie stared resolutely at her hands, catching herself mid-thought as she was trying to wish herself away and into Jesse's arms.

_Stop that_, she chided herself mentally, _don't wish too much. It can only hurt you_.

"So, Miss Foster – uh, may I call you Winifred?" he asked politely.

"Winnie, if you must," she replied, bored already.

"Yes, uh, Winnie…I hear you turned seventeen yesterday."

"How quickly word travels in Treegap," she answered acerbically, careful to keep her tone as neutral as possible. "Yes, I had a birthday yesterday."

She allowed herself to look at Alexander's face. The comparison couldn't be helped – this was no Jesse Tuck. It had been a few years since this man was 17, although how many, Winnie had a hard time telling, though she wouldn't guess more than seven. Where Jesse's golden hazel eyes had been full of laughter and daring, Alexander's muddy brown ones were dull and calculating. There was no smile playing at the corner of his lips, no mischievous wink always at the ready, and most telling of all, no affection in his gaze. To Winnie, he was thoroughly, boringly, totally ordinary, and she was no longer content to settle for that. She wanted adventure in her life, and had begun to realize that her strictly controlled Victorian world would not offer that to her.

"Did you have a pleasant day?" he asked, although she could detect no trace of any real interest in his voice.

_Oh, Jesse, what did I lose when I lost you? First love, best friend, and kindred spirit all in one fell blow!_ The thought was finished before she could quell it.

"As pleasant as one can when she finds herself reminded that life and the carelessness of childhood cannot last forever," the truth slipped out of her before she could censor her words for public consumption.

"I see. Heavy thoughts for such a one as yourself," he observed delicately.

"Do you mean that to reference my being female or my being seventeen years of age?" She didn't know why she felt the need to examine his words, but it seemed the best amusement available to her under the circumstances.

"Why, neither, both, either, take your pick!" he spluttered, clearly taken aback. Winnie could see from his expression that he had never found his polite words questioned before.

"I see. Tell me, Mr. Jackson-"

"Alexander, please."

"Alexander. Why is it that you're even here?"

"Isn't it obvious? You're a lovely young woman, Winnie, and I am looking for a wife."

"Yes, that's all very apparent – the wife bit at least. But why me? Is it just that you find me to be a lovely young woman? Surely there should be more of a basis to a match than just that!"

"Winifred!" Mrs. Foster gasped from the doorway where she had reappeared, followed by their servant girl, Anna, who carried a heavily laden tea tray. "Where have your manners gone! I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Jackson, we raised her better, but she's clearly forgotten that."

"I haven't forgotten, mother," Winnie said, a sudden rebelliousness welling up within her which she could only credit to her time spent with the Tucks, "I asked a serious question, one that deserves a serious answer. Surely there should be more to a partnership such as marriage than the one finding the other to be a lovely young woman!"

"If this is your love nonsense, Winifred, I will have none of it!" Mrs. Foster hissed, drawing Winnie aside. "I told you: love has no place in reality, and certainly not in adult reality. You are a young woman now, so act like one!"

"If this is a bad time, I can leave-" Alexander suggested hesitantly.

"No, of course not!" Mrs. Foster said brightly. "Winnie's just a bit overbold. Heaven only knows where she got it, but I more than suspect that it came from her ordeal at the hands of that horrible family that kidnapped her…"

Winnie forced herself to tune out her mother's ramblings that cast the Tucks in the most negative of lights. Only she knew the truth; only she COULD know it, but if she listened to too many criticisms, she would be all too tempted to tell her mother what she really thought of all that society nonsense.

"…Winnie," the sound of her name in Alexander's voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"Beg pardon?"

"I said, how terrible that must have been for you, Winnie," he repeated.

"Yes, utterly horrible," she lied, feeling like a traitor. "But I prefer to think of it more as an adventure. It really wasn't all that bad, to tell the truth."

Mrs. Foster laughed as though Winnie had just told a spectacularly funny joke.

"How brave my daughter is!" she said brightly to Alexander. Winnie had to suppress the mutinous feelings welling up inside of her, forcefully, and smile and nod as though her intent had been to make a joke all along.

_I'm sorry,_ she thought fiercely, not liking even this slight betrayal of all that the Tucks had meant to her.

"It sounds like she had quite an ordeal, and I find it quite amazing that she was able to find the courage to resume normal life so quickly afterwards," Alexander agreed. "You're quite the young woman, Winnie."

"Thank you," she said dully, and turned her head slightly to stare out the window.

"Of course, ever since she was returned to us, she's been prone to flights of fancy. Always staring out of windows and daydreaming, it seems. It must have been how she survived being the captive of those horrible people. I haven't been able to break her of the habit, but perhaps taking on some real responsibility will help," Mrs. Foster blathered on, trying to explain away any slip-ups in Winnie's imperfect social mask quickly and simply. It surprised Winnie that she thought that the Tucks were the easiest explanation at hand.

"What is it that you dream about, Winnie?" he asked her. She was slightly surprised at the question.

"Meadows, and waterfalls, and dancing, and mountains, and the Eiffel Tower…" she gave the most truthful answer she could without giving anything away. She had learned the value of honesty early in her life, and always avoided outright lies when she could help it. That, and the truth had simply slipped out.

"You want to see France?" he asked, surprised by that addition to her list.

"One day, I hope to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, yes."

"Climb! Heavens, Winnie, have you any idea what kind of a climb that is?" he grinned.

"1,652 steps to the top," she recited without even realizing it.

Mrs. Foster and Alexander burst out laughing.

"Did you learn that in school? Heavens!" Mrs. Foster gasped. "What other useless tidbits did they teach you there?"

Winnie felt her cheeks burn, and stared resolutely at her hands clasped in her lap. She desperately wanted for this interview to be over.

"Oh, lighten up on her, Mrs. Foster! She has spirit, and that's a wonderful thing. She'll make a wonderful hostess at parties if she keeps that," he pointed out with a chuckle. Any charitable feelings Winnie had been able to summon up regarding him vanished instantly as soon as he spoke the last sentence. He was describing her as one would a circus dog, wonderful for social entertainment but precious little else, and she resented it. The Tucks had loved her spirit, encouraged it even, and never thought of its potential "uses." Yet again she found herself making comparisons, with Alexander coming out ever the more unfavorable.

The rest of the afternoon continued in a rather similar vein, with Winnie making pointed remarks throughout the conversation and her mother and Alexander either laughing them off or attempting to cast them in a better light. He and her mother even got along so well that she invited him back for tea the next day, which only gave Winnie a bad feeling.

She could see her future being auctioned off to this humorless man who saw her only as a "lovely young woman" and she resented that. At the same time, however, she couldn't see her way out of this current entanglement, any more easily than she could see herself safely reunited with Jesse and Angus and Miles and Mae.

_Still, I suppose it could be worse,_ her logical self reflected as she combed her hair before bed that evening. _How could it be worse?!_ her emotional self railed in response, _You're cut off from the one you love! You're being advertised to Alexander with every trick your mother's got! You can't run away, either; you just have to hope and pray that Alexander will be kind and decent to you like father was to mother._

"So that's what I'll do!" she hissed harshly to herself, setting her brush down swiftly. "It's not like I have another choice."

Her open window beckoned to her temptingly. How easy it would be to climb out, drink the spring water, and run away. She could be miles away by morning, never to return.

The idea was compelling.

She got up and closed the window firmly before settling down to sleep.


	5. Ch 4: The End of World War I

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. This is the last of the sections that I wrote during my 3-day waiting period after registering, so let me know what you think and if I should continue. I can't think of anything else I wanted to say about this section, so enjoy!

* * *

November 11, 1918

Armistice.

Peace in Europe had finally arrived.

Well, peace of a sort. The fighting would continue until 11:11 AM, the predetermined time of the cease-fire. It seemed unreal to Jesse that the nations would agree to continue the carnage and loss of life until an arbitrary minute and second, but then many of the political actions he had seen in his long life had been entirely arbitrary.

The gun shots and screams of the wounded and dying were deafening. Bombs exploded, sending shrapnel flying. It would almost bounce off of him and Miles, but men they fought alongside, good men, men they had befriended, were pierced through and fell back into the trenches, screaming in pain as they bled to death.

Even if Jesse never again saw another man's blood before the end of the world, it would be too soon. He looked at his watch, hurriedly. 11:00 AM. Only eleven more hellish minutes, and then the "War to End All Wars" would be over. He took a deep breath, and hunkered down in his trench. He didn't want to do this anymore. He reached into a pocket and pulled out the little figurine of Winnie. He squeezed it tight in his fist while closing his eyes and attempting to drown out the screams of fear and pain, the explosions all around him. If hell had a soundtrack like anything on earth, Jesse knew this would be the closest he'd get to it.

"Who's that, Chris?" one of his comrades-in-arms, Alexander, a man from Clearwater, the next town over from Treegap, asked him, seeing Jesse staring intently at it. He noted its shape quickly, and understanding dawned on his face. "You got a girl back home?"

"Her name's Annette," Jesse replied, giving Winnie's middle name. "I love her."

"You going to marry her when you get back?" Alexander asked solemnly.

"One day, if she'll have me. What about you; you got a girl to go home to?" Jesse answered. Maybe he could spend the last few minutes of this war not bringing or witnessing death, maybe he could spend it on war's antithesis, love. Alexander reached into a pocket and pulled out a rumpled photograph splotched with water and mud stains. He wiped it off against a pant leg and gazed at it a moment before showing it to Jesse. Jesse's breath caught in his throat, and it seemed to him for a moment that his heart stopped beating in his chest. He'd know that face anywhere, the ringlets of her hair put just-so, a mischievous gleam in her eye, and corners of her mouth quirked slightly as if to burst into a grin or smirk at any moment…and the faraway, dreamy expression, he'd recognize that anywhere, too. _Winnie_, he thought, but kept his expression carefully schooled so that Alexander wouldn't see his spark of recognition and suspect anything.

"Her name's Winifred," he said with a smile, "but I call her Winnie".

"She's lovely, Alex," Jesse said, careful to keep his tone respectfully neutral. "When did you meet her?"

"Two years ago tomorrow. Today's her nineteenth birthday, and when I return, we're going to be married."

"Do you love her?" Jesse asked, an urgent need to know suddenly overcoming him.

"She was a very spirited girl when I met her, and her manners are still somewhat lacking, but that's to be expected: she was kidnapped when she was just about fifteen. Quite a traumatic experience, it sounds like…"

_Traumatic?_ Jesse was bewildered at first, then remembered that she couldn't tell the truth after all. But why would she paint her time as traumatic? Probably her mother's doing, he decided.

"…and in any event, even though she accepted my proposal, I've a feeling it was mostly her mother's doing. She didn't seem as happy as a young woman should to be engaged. She's lost a lot of the old spirit, settled down, become quieter, more withdrawn, more prone to flights of fancy. Still, she'll make a good wife, and I hope that in time we can grow to be more than the loosely acquainted friends we are now."

"So you don't love her?" Jesse was stunned. How could anyone not? Winnie was the most amazing young woman he'd ever met.

"Not as such, no. I have affection for her, but more like one would have for a female friend or relation, though in time I'm sure we can overcome that."

"I hope so," Jesse said, more fervently than he had intended. He didn't want Winnie to live a loveless life.

Before Jesse could ask more, a bomb went off not fifteen feet away; its explosion shook the ground, and Jesse shoved Alexander to the ground as the shrapnel flew. He couldn't help it – if he saw one more person die, he didn't know what he'd do. Bits and pieces of sharply pointed, red-hot metal scattered around them, more than a few hitting Jesse and stinging horribly. He knew he'd be fine, though, so he didn't worry about it.

They sat back up, shakily.

"You saved my life!" Alexander gasped, hugging Jesse gratefully. "Thank you, Chris!"

"Don't think anything of it; you have to get back to your girl, don't you?" Jesse said, a slightly bitter taste in his mouth. Alexander grinned, and clapped Jesse on the shoulder.

Jesse looked at his watch. 11:10. Hell was almost over. A few more minutes, and he'd be traveling home, and then off to who-knew-where.

He and Alexander watched his watch tick down the minutes until 11:11. The explosions continued until, at last, the battlefield fell silent.

After the hellish noise, the silence was pure heaven. Despite being unreligious, it seemed to Jesse at that moment that in the silence, God was speaking. Even those who were wounded fell silent for one magical moment. All throughout the trench, the young men and boys on the Allied side looked at each other, almost afraid to believe that they had made it, questioning whether or not they had slipped away to heaven or at least limbo when they weren't looking.

Some of them began crying. Even Jesse and Miles found tears of relief running down their faces. The relief at the end of the war was palpable, and the men surged out of the trenches, running toward the other side. Where the men on the other side had seconds before been enemies, now they were fellow men, other people who had been wrenched away from their homes for reasons only vaguely understood. Somehow, all of the guys present there understood that now that the war was over, they could be friends. They'd never really been fighting each other anyway – until then, it had just been their nations clashing, tossing their lives into the fray in a desperate campaign to see which side had more cannon fodder and supplies.

Everywhere, men were hugging each other, sharing pictures of loves back home and stories of what they were looking forward to returning to. The atmosphere was reminiscent of a carnival, and why shouldn't it be? The conflict had never been between them. It had been their governments', they were just honest, patriotic young men sent to serve their countries against other honest, patriotic young men in the same dire straits. And now that the conflict had ended, they were free to be young, free to make friends and treat one another as they would have had they met under other circumstances.

Miles and Jesse stood slightly apart from the overwhelming show of the universal brotherhood of all men. They watched as men who had formerly been enemies helped to care for the wounded of both sides, mourned en masse the loss of each life, and formed personal bonds with people they had only moments before been locked in a battle to the death with.

"You did good today, Jesse, saving Alex," Miles said softly, seeing his younger brother clearly overwhelmed by what he saw. "I'm proud of you. She would be too."

"Thanks Miles," Jesse replied in a voice thickened by repressed emotions. "I couldn't let him die, not like that, not so close to the end."

Miles didn't answer. There wasn't much need for an answer anyway.

"You know, Jess, I'm sorry you had to see this. If there's anywhere you want to go, anything you want to do, to try and get these memories out of your head, I'll go with you. And if you ever want to talk, about this or her or anything at all, even though we've been drifting apart since you met her, I'm still your brother. I still love you, Jesse."

"Thanks Miles. I love you too. But right now I just want to go back and see her."

"That's the only thing you can't do, Jess-"

"And you think I don't know that?"

"Look, Jesse, you need to know that…that Tuck-"

"Told her not to. I know. He told me, the night before the _Lusitania_ went down. Please don't talk to me about that, or her, or there, anymore, Miles. I never wanted to admit this, but it hurts too much. I love her, and I will, until the day I die."

"You can't-"

"That's what she said. And that's the point exactly. I will love her forever, and the thought of – of losing her – Miles, I can't take it," his voice cracked, and he took a deep breath. "I need her," he whispered.

"That's how I felt after…Sarah," even after so many years, Miles still couldn't come to terms with even the words to describe what had happened to his own family. He sighed and paused, then continued, "but eventually the pain, it lessens. It's no longer a knife stabbing your heart. It gets to be, to be more of a dull ache, like a bruise. It only really hurts when you prod at it," he offered, meaning to be helpful. But to Jesse, forever seventeen, forever in love, it wasn't.

"Let's go home, Miles. I'm tired of war. I want to see Tuck and hug Mae, and then I want to travel some more."

"Alright, Jesse. Let's go," Miles said.

The two men shouldered their packs and turned their backs on the scene before them, leaving the soldiers, volunteers and draftees alike, to make their own peace. They didn't need to; after all, they'd be living forever, and they'd have all the time in the world to make their peace with themselves.

Jesse checked to make sure he still had the carved figure of Winnie as they passed the trench, and they continued walking until dark without any further interruption.


	6. Ch 5: Wedding Bells

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. Things should pick up, plot-wise, shortly. I'm just getting rid of the obligatory expositional stuff in Winnie's life, still. Enjoy!

* * *

June 3, 1919

Winnie allowed herself to sleep past the dawn, just this once. She couldn't sleep much past it, but she did miss the first hour or so of morning.

Her childhood had ended. She was now almost a twenty year old woman, and this was her wedding day. She rose heavily from her bed, wiping tears out of her eyes. It had been four and a half years since the Tucks fled Treegap and she had to remain behind. Two and a half years since she had first met Alexander Jackson, told herself to forget about Jesse Tuck, and stopped dreaming about him every night. Two and a half years since the last time she woke with tears in her eyes.

Last night, she'd dreamt about him again. They had been climbing his mountain, and he had been telling her all about the Eiffel Tower, Europe, and his plans to spend his life becoming a man of the world who had traveled greatly, and seen everything. But when they reached the top and looked down, they were looking at the waterfall and the pond where he had taught her how to swim. It had been a beautiful dream, but she put it firmly out of mind.

It had been two and a half years since her dreams of him had ceased. Two and a half years of mind- and soul-numbing withdrawal from things she loved in order to fit into her family's mold of what was important. She missed Jesse, missed the woods, missed having the freedom to do as she pleased when she pleased, and that made each day seem interminable. She still found time to enjoy the little things, though, and at least for a little while she'd had Alexander to verbally joust with, and had even grown to enjoy their visits despite loathing the intention of them, but then the United States had been drawn into the Great War taking place in Europe, and a draft had begun. Alexander had volunteered to go even before he was drafted, insisting it was his duty as an American.

She remembered the day he had told her as if it had only just happened…

"_I'm afraid, Winifred, that I won't be able to see you for some time," he said softly, taking her hand and looking into her eyes. She felt uncomfortable with him staring at her so frankly, with his quiet tone. She had grown to think of him as a friend, and was unnerved to hear that an interruption to their friendship had actually arrived, albeit about a year too late._

"_Why not?" she asked, her curiosity threatening to overwhelm her._

"_You know of the war in Europe, and America's declaration to join on the side of England and France? I have volunteered for the army."_

"_But…_why_?" Winnie asked, bewildered. Surely any rational person would want to avoid the horrors of armed conflict between nations? That's how it had sounded to her, at least, when Miles told her of his experiences._

"_It's my duty. Innocent Americans have already died in this conflict; it is my duty to go fight to defend other innocent Americans from the same fate. But Winnie, there is something I must ask you before I go," he added hesitantly._

"_What is it?"_

"_Well, I've spoken with your parents," sudden dread seized her heart at those words, and she suddenly understood why her mother had left them alone for so long, "and they've agreed that if you wish it, I…we…what I mean to say is, will you marry me Winnie, when I return, if I do?" _

_He looked so hopeful, sitting across from there, his dark brown eyes boring into hers, that Winnie found it difficult to not feel guilty when her first impulse was to reject his proposal._

At least we're friends_, she thought,_ he'll treat me well. I didn't drink the water; I can't go back to Jesse; if I turn Alex down, who knows how much worse the next suitor could be? And eventually I will have to take a husband; isn't it better to marry the friend who I respect than the acquaintance that circumstance forces me to choose?

_She had bitten her lip and looked away from him briefly as she pondered, and when she looked back at him, his expression was utterly downcast and crestfallen. Still, it took courage for her to give her answer._

"_Yes, I will marry you, Alex," she had said. There had been a hint of sadness in her voice, but fortunately he had missed it or chosen not to remark on it. He had kissed her hand, then realized that now that they were engaged, the restrictions were instantly lessened and kissed her cheek. She'd closed her eyes and bitten her lip as he did that, unwilling to think about what she had just done. He left quickly, needing to pack because he was set to leave by week's end for training. Her mind was churning, her emotions tumultuous. She didn't know what to think or feel…._

…And now, here she was, making good on her promise to marry Alexander upon his return. They had waited a few months at his behest; apparently he was trying to organize some sort of surprise for her and didn't want to marry her until it was all set.

At least one unequivocally good thing had come out of the proposal: she and her mother were actually on good terms for probably the first time ever, having reached an understanding…

…"_I'm proud of you, Winifred," her mother's voice came from the doorway only minutes after he left. She spun around, her face flushing, to see her mother cross the room to where she sat. "You've finally matured. Mr. Jackson's a good choice, he'll treat you well."_

"_So you told me when we first met, mother," Winnie said bitterly._

"_Winifred, you're my only daughter. Despite how it may seem to you, I do love you. I've only ever wanted the best for you. Can't you see that?" Mrs. Foster said in exasperation, throwing her hands into the air for emphasis._

"_You can't understand," Winnie said, looking away from her mother. "You wouldn't know what I'm going through._

_For the first time that Winnie could remember, Mrs. Foster dropped the mask that she had always worn. She lost some of her stiffness as she sat beside her daughter on the couch. A sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and furrowed her brow. _

"_I, too, wanted love and romance and adventure when I was your age – as every girl does – but eventually I learned, as you will, that that is the stuff of tales. It doesn't happen to ordinary women like us, Winifred. You have to accept that. If you don't, I'd hate to see you be that unhappy over something that you can't change."_

"_And what if I could? Would you support me in it then?" Winnie still couldn't look at her mother, and the thoughts came out before she could suppress them, in a mutinous tone laden with more emotions than she could name._

"_Of course, Winifred, what ever gave you the idea that I wouldn't?" Mrs. Foster asked, shocked to the core by what her daughter was implying._

"_Because you've never supported me before," Winnie whispered, squeezing the arm of the couch so tightly her knuckles whitened. _

"_I must admit, I don't know how to answer that. I've always tried to support you, Winnie. You're my daughter, my little girl. Whenever I've seen you unhappy, I've always tried to make it better-"_

"Better_?!" Winnie interrupted, unable to contain herself. "With lectures on, on, on responsibility, on how I should be grateful that "a man like Mr. Jackson" had taken notice of me, on why I should be giving up things I held dear because they were childish?" Winnie raged, no longer caring about the consequences. "How has that made my life better, mother?"_

_Mrs. Foster was silent, so Winnie continued._

"_Did any of that ever make you happy? If it did, that's horrible, and if it didn't, how could you think that I'd be any different?! Why are you inflicting me with the same things that kept you from happiness, mother? Do you really think that I'm so much different from you, that-"_

_Words failed Winnie as her mother hugged her suddenly, and she started to cry instead._

"_I'm sorry, Winifred," she whispered, and Winnie felt tears drop from her mother's cheek onto her own. "I should have thought more carefully about that, but that's over. It's done with, and put behind us. I can't explain my actions any better than that's all that I knew, and I'm sorry for hurting you. We can't start over, that's plain enough, but can we try to move on?"_

"_I'd like that," Winnie cried, hugging her mother back. "And I'm sorry for yelling at you but, I-I don't even know. I don't want to grow up," she finished, "but I find that I already am grown up and I don't want that for myself. I don't want to be married to someone I don't love; I don't want to live without love and romance and magic; I just want to be happy, and it seems like, even though that's the simplest wish to make, it's the hardest one to have, and I'm just scared of what's going to happen next that I won't know how to handle. I'm scared I won't ever be happy." The last was barely a whisper, but her mother heard. For the first time, Mrs. Foster answered one of Winnie's mutinous whispers…_

"_Me too, Winnie. Me, too."_

…That had probably been the most startling revelation of her entire life, and now, on the morning of her wedding, Winnie looked out of her window at the early morning, and made herself a promise.

_I will find happiness, and I will help my children to find it as well._ She sighed, and whispered as she scribbled in her journal, "I will always, always and forever love you, Jesse, but you can't be my only happiness in life. Thank you for teaching me to be happy, and thank you, Tuck, for teaching me the value of life and death…I'm going to need both lessons to survive what happens next. I don't know if I could have made it without you."

It was the closest she had ever come to a true confession of her kidnapping and adventure, and it was the closest she ever would come so as not to risk the Tucks' safety.

But it seemed appropriate that, on this day, she should end her journal with a note to always remember the lessons she had so nearly forgotten in her unhappiness at losing Jesse. She sighed, and tucked it away, along with a sprig of honeysuckle she had found growing around the tree at the spring, in the bag that she was packing to have brought to her new home with her husband so that she would have all the things she needed until her belongings could be moved in as well.

A soft knock came at the door.

"Come in," Winnie called, sitting at her vanity to begin combing her hair. Her mother came into the room, smiling.

"You're always awake before I come in now; I don't even know why I still bother with thinking I need to wake you up," she said affectionately, taking Winnie's comb from her hand and beginning to work it through her long chestnut hair.

"Old habits are hard to break," Winnie smiled, until the sudden realization that this would be the last time her mother helped her prepare for the day made her stomach freeze and knot up on itself. "Mother?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't think I want to do this anymore." Even to her own ears, she sounded like a little girl uttering those words.

Mrs. Foster smiled gently, and kissed the top of her daughter's head. "Believe me, I know how you feel," she said in a tone so honest it startled Winnie into laughing. "I felt the exact same way, only it took until my mother was helping me into my gown before I found the courage to voice it."

She paused long enough to untangle a particularly stubborn knot in her daughter's curls.

"The fact of it, Winnie, is most everyone gets scared on their wedding day. All of us see it as an end to something, rather than the beginning that it truly is. I wish I could say more, promise that the future will always be bright and sunny for you, but the truth is that even the best marriages have their troubles. You'll be happy enough, you just might have to work at it. Besides, it's not like you can never come home again," she said, seemingly reading Winnie's mind as to the direct cause of her sudden case of cold feet. "Now let's make you even more beautiful than you already are."

Winnie smiled as her mother began to set and style her hair. She had always loved how her mother would begin to hum absently as she wove her hair into elaborate styles that made Winnie dizzy to think about, and it made her smile to think that her mother was actually happy as she spent many long minutes trying to tame Winnie's unruly curls.

Unfortunately, this morning her hair seemed to be more cooperative than normal, and the soothing sound of her mother's hum ended far too soon. Winnie stood without being prompted, and for the first time, willingly allowed her mother to strap her into that most hated of garments: her corset. Her gown wouldn't fit properly without it, in any event, but it seemed to her that her mother didn't tie it as tightly as she usually would.

Winnie's gown was a wonder to behold. Fashioned out of yards of silk and beaded with tiny seed pearls in an elegantly detailed swirling pattern along the hem of the flowing skirt, she couldn't even begin to guess at its worth. There was a bit of lace at the throat of its high collar, attached to a single pearl that had been delicately carved to look like a blooming flower. Winnie stood stone-still as her mother did up the rows of delicate pearl buttons on the back, humming softly as she did so. The sound calmed Winnie's increasingly fragile nerves, and her mother's gentle touch was soothing.

"Stay there," Mrs. Foster said softly when she had finished buttoning Winnie into her gown. She ran out the door and came back ten minutes later with a bundle of creamy pink roses and a long lace veil. "Here," she said, taking several of the roses from the bouquet and trimming them quickly. She braided them together into a crown of sorts, which she attached to the veil. "My mother put flowers in my hair for my wedding; it's only right that you have them, too." Winnie smiled faintly as Mrs. Foster attached the veil to her head with numerous hatpins, and used still more hatpins to attach the rose crown.

A memory rose up, unbidden, into Winnie's mind: laying in the meadow wearing a crown of daisies. She banished it quickly before it could progress further, to Jesse, which could only hurt her today. Another surfaced, one which even Jesse didn't know about: Mae showing her the paper dry remains of her own wedding bouquet, which had been pressed long ago into the only journal she had ever kept.

"_They were pale pink, with the faintest touch of red around the edges of the petals: the most beautiful flowers I'd ever seen," she said, picking up their dried remains delicately so Winnie could see. "I wore some in my hair instead of a veil, and Angus, the foolish, foolish man, told me that I was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen – so beautiful that the roses should be ashamed to be seen in my company. That…that was the sweetest compliment I ever received, although he's tried numerous times to best it. I often thought, 'I'm the luckiest woman alive, to have such a good man so madly in love with me. We'll be together forever.' Well, the forever part was right, but I'm not so sure about the lucky; surely a lucky woman would never have found that spring?"_ Mae's voice echoed softly through her mind. Winnie remembered well the soft tone of her voice and the gentle smile that had transformed the older woman's features into the very picture of happiness at the memories of her wedding day, and remembered her own thought: _I hope I find that kind of love and happiness at my own wedding._ And now, here she stood, with her mother putting pale pink roses into her hair, uncertain whether her wish would come true or not!

"What are you smiling about Winnie?" her mother asked gently.

Winnie took a deep breath, looking down at her hands for a moment. "I think I'll be alright. I'm not so scared anymore," she said softly.

Mrs. Foster smiled and squeezed her daughter's hand. "Good, because all that's left for you to put on are your shoes," she said, handing her a pair of silk dancing slippers, "and then we'll take the carriage to the church. We'll meet everyone there."

Winnie nodded, swallowing hard now that the moment of truth was so near, and sat to put her slippers on, nearly tripping over the train of her gown in the process.

The ceremony didn't take long. Winnie was surprised at how quickly it ended. The marriage contract signed, Alexander whisked her off to their carriage to their new home and married life.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, seeing her faraway expression.

"Nothing. It was just…so quick."

"Really? I found it damn near interminable. Interesting that our perceptions should be so different."

"Yes, fascinating," Winnie said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. He laughed.

"I have a gift for you," he said with a grin, kissing her cheek.

"Really now? Pray tell what it is?" she replied with a smile, leaning back against the cushioned seat of the carriage to really look at him. Her unfavorable comparison of him with Jesse still held, but she now found in his features a pleasing reliability: if nothing else, he was her friend, and now he was her husband. Surely that counted for something?

He brandished an envelope before her. "Come get it," he smirked.

She looked at him, looked at the envelope, and looked back at him.

_Well, we _are _married…_

She leaned in and kissed him. Simultaneously, she grabbed the envelope out of his hand.

"Minx," he laughed.

"Tyrant," she smiled.

"You're beautiful, but especially so when you smile, Winnie. Never stop," he said, growing serious all of a sudden.

"Well, I suppose that's up to you," she teased. "What's in this envelope?"

"Open it and see, love, that's why I let you have it."

She looked at him curiously, then opened it. Inside were two pieces of paper. She picked them up and inspected them curiously…

"Ship passes to France?!" she burst out. "What is this about?"

"You said you wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower when we first met. We'll climb it together. All 1,652 steps to the top." He kissed her again, and for the first time she didn't freeze up and merely endure it when he did. This time she returned it, surprising them both in the process.

Winnie didn't know how she'd feel in fifty years, or ten, or one, or even five minutes, but at that moment she loved him. Not as much as Jesse, but love was love, and she wasn't about to throw it away over a stupid comparison.


	7. Ch 6: Speakeasy Spree

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. This is the first one to cover a span of time, even though I don't spend much time explaining where time separates. Don't worry about it too much, I certainly didn't.

* * *

July 17, 1919-August 12, 1924

If someone had bothered to ask either Jesse or Miles Tuck exactly what they were doing sitting in someone's basement drinking bathtub – or was it bootlegged? – gin, and how they'd landed themselves in that situation, they'd have been hard pressed to give a good answer.

The truth was neither of them was quite sure of anything anymore.

After the war had ended, they'd returned home. But life on the farm wasn't the same anymore; both boys had been scarred by the atrocities they had witnessed on the battlefields of continental Europe. Miles had grudgingly admitted that the horrors of that war had surpassed even those of the Civil War. Both of them were shell-shocked, in desperate need of a way to escape their memories of war. Mae and Tuck had understood, and let their sons leave voluntarily, telling them to do what they needed to in order to set their heads straight.

They'd gone first to France, mainly at Jesse's behest. He wanted to see the Eiffel Tower again, almost needing to reassure himself that it was still sound, that it still stood. Miles had laughed at him, but gone with him nonetheless…

_The sun was shining brightly, but it lent little cheer to the faces of the French citizens. The war had destroyed their cities, ravaged their economy, and taken the lives of the better part of a generation of Frenchmen. Jesse and Miles felt conspicuously out of place as they wandered down one of the avenues in Paris that led to the Eiffel Tower._

"_You've already climbed this tower, Jesse, why do you need to do it again?" Miles asked, complaining slightly to irritate his younger brother._

"_You wouldn't understand, Miles."_

"_Try me."_

_Jesse shook his head. "You can always wander around and meet me back at our flat," he suggested._

"_I can't leave you alone."_

"_Why not? I may as well be a grown man!"_

"_That's not the point, Jesse. I just…I don't think you should be alone until you've finished sorting through your memories of the war. You've seen many awful things, and you shouldn't have to cope by yourself."_

_Jesse didn't reply. They reached the tower steps before he had to. He looked up toward the top, and took a deep breath before starting to climb. He and Miles were both breathing hard by the time they reached the viewing deck and they leaned heavily against the railing until they caught their breath. Jesse took in the view, noting how it had changed in the intervening years since he had been up there last._

"_You're right, Jesse, this is spectacular," Miles said, interrupting his reverie. "I should have climbed this with you the last time. Pity anyone who dies without seeing this," he muttered softly._

"_I promised Winnie that I would show her the Eiffel Tower one day," Jesse whispered, taking out the carved figure of her. "I promised that we would climb the stairs up here, all 1,652 of them, so she could see that I'd counted them right. I never want to come back here again, Miles, but I wanted to see the view one last time. I wanted to…to…" he couldn't find the words to express himself, so he shrugged and turned around._

"_Where are you going?" Miles demanded._

"_Nowhere," Jesse replied. He put the little figure of Winnie in one of the metal curlicues at the base of the railing around the viewing deck, and laid a pale pink rose that he had been carrying in his pocket in front of it._

"_What are you doing, Jesse?" Miles' tone was softer this time._

"_Saying goodbye to all I had and lost."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_Remember Alexander Jackson? The man I saved in the trench on Armistice Day?"_

"_How could I forget?"_

"_He told me that he was going to marry Winnie after war's end. Once he got back home. I imagine they've been married since December. I lost her, Miles."_

"_You don't know that, Jesse."_

"_You don't know otherwise, Miles," Jesse retorted. "Come on, let's go."_

_The brothers climbed to the bottom of the tower in silence and were walking away from it when-_

"_Chris! Christopher Jensen! And Marcus Jensen, too!"_

_Jesse and Miles recognized the voice and the pseudonyms all too well and jumped slightly, freezing in their tracks._

"_Oh, bugger," Jesse muttered under his breath. "What's _he _doing here, _now_?"_

"_Hell if I know," Miles muttered, "but we're busted now, so may as well be social."_

_They turned around to see Alexander Jackson running toward them, followed by a young woman in a pale blue dress with a large hat that covered most of her face. But Jesse didn't need to see her to know who she was. His heart froze._

"_How are you, my friends?" Alexander called out, grinning widely at the sight of them. "How serendipitous! I'd never thought to see either of you again, and yet here you are!"_

"_Amazing," Jesse muttered. Miles hit him in the side slightly, and he forced a smile onto his face._

"_Oh, but where are my manners?!" Alexander crowed. "Winnie, darling, I'd like you to meet two of my friends: Christopher and Marcus Jensen. These young men saved my life more than once during the war. Chris, Mark, this is Winifred, my wife."_

"_How do you do," both Jesse and Miles muttered. Winnie began to mutter the same, but stopped dead when she looked up and saw just who her husband had introduced her to. All the color drained from her face, and Jesse thought she would faint dead away. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but just ended up gaping like a fish out of water._

_They'd left France immediately after that, setting sail for America the very next day, and promised each other not to tell Mae or Tuck what had happened there._

…Jesse ruminated over their coincidental meeting in France as he sipped at his drink – a cocktail, they had called it. Some new concoction created to make bathtub liquor palatable. She had recognized him, he had seen it plainly, but he couldn't help but wonder what she had thought.

She had been even more beautiful than he remembered her, that much was certain, though. It had stung to see her, to be so close, and yet unable to reach out to her, to hug her, to kiss her. To be unable to ask if she had drunk the water and would find some way to leave Alexander to be with him…

He felt guilty even thinking that. He knew Alex was a good man, would take care of Winnie and treat her like a queen. He knew that she couldn't wait on him forever, not when her family was what it was; not when her parents would insist on her marrying someone suitable. He shouldn't be thinking of ways to communicate with a friend's bride, to lure her away from him, to convince her to run away and never go back, to give up the stability in her life for the uncertainty and almost-fear that he and his family lived with daily. He should be hoping that she was happy with Alex, not wondering if she had drunk the water that would guarantee her an eternity with himself.

"What are you thinking, little brother?" Miles asked, sitting down beside him with a cocktail in hand.

"Nothing important," Jesse lied. "You?"

"Same." A Charleston began blaring through the room, and people paired up to dance. Jesse watched the dancers hopping around, wondering at the acrobatic steps. Dances sure had changed since he had been the age of most of the other people in the room. "Can you believe this dance?" Miles asked, catching Jesse in mid-thought.

"It's an interesting one," Jesse agreed, laughing.

Suddenly he was struck by how much fun everyone looked to be having, and by how much fun he wasn't. He looked at his glass, now half-empty, and drained it, then got up and wandered across the room to where a couple of girls were sitting and talking. He was tired of sitting on the sidelines. He was tired of being lonely all the time.

Neither of the girls was especially pretty, but neither were they plain. They seemed to be flapper girls, judging by their bobbed haircuts, painstakingly-applied red lipstick, and knee-length dresses. One had dyed her bob black, in sharp contrast to her porcelain-pale skin and green eyes, whereas the other had left it her natural auburn. Both were wearing soft grey and teal dresses, and had strung a king's ransom of beaded and pearl necklaces around their necks.

"Excuse me," he said when he reached them, "but would either of you ladies like to dance?"

"No thank you," the girl with the black bob said, without even looking at him, but the auburn-haired girl fixed him with an appraising stare, her brown eyes clearly measuring him against some standard. One of the corners of her mouth quirked in a mile.

"Sure, but just for one song," she said in a thick Brooklyn accent. "My name's Elizabeth; you are?"

"John," Jesse replied, extending his hand to shake. "Pleased to meet you."

"We'll see about that," Elizabeth laughed, and stood. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Lindsay, wait for me?" she asked her companion, who merely nodded. Elizabeth steered Jesse onto the dance floor.

He was awful, but Elizabeth more than made up for it, making his clumsy steps look like they were what they were supposed to be, and turning his errors into new, original steps.

"Do you do this often?" he asked, laughing, as she maneuvered her way around what must have been the hundredth near miss of his stepping on her feet.

"Often enough," she shrugged. "Lindsay and I are regulars here, but most of these others aren't, so the selection varies every night. I was surprised you asked – normally the newcomers just sit against the wall and get drunk, and they certainly don't ask Linz or I for a dance."

"It's boring just sitting around drinking," Jesse replied, the words escaping before he could think about them.

"Is it now? And you've been drinking for so long you'd know?" Elizabeth laughed, clearly thinking he'd just made a joke, for which he was profoundly relieved. "I'd work on my lines if I was you, sugar," she said lightly, winking at him. "Humor's good, but only if you can deliver it right."

The song ended too quickly, it seemed to Jesse. He had only just begun to figure out the steps when the music stopped and switched to a much slower tune.

"Thanks for the dance, sugar," Elizabeth said, patting him on the cheek like a child. "Work on your steps, and maybe next time I'll give you two dances." She held out the invitation to him temptingly, but he didn't take it.

"Thank you, Elizabeth, but I don't plan on becoming a regular," he said, marveling at the girl's boldness. Social mores had certainly changed over the years, and normally he'd been able to keep up with them, but he found himself slightly confused as to how exactly one should deal with these bold flappers.

"Shame. Well, if you ever come back here and don't have the password to get in, tell 'em Elizabeth told you the password was 'swordfish'. The boys at the front will know to let you in." She blew a kiss at him as she walked off. He didn't quite know what to make of her, but her exuberance seemed to be catching. He grinned and walked back to the bar to order another cocktail each for himself and Miles.

"What was that about, Jesse?" Miles asked him when he sat back down.

"I'm tired of just drinking myself into oblivion. I want to have fun, Miles. I want to feel alive. Maybe you should try it, too."

"Maybe I should."

The next night, they returned. And the night after that, and the night after, in quick succession, until the nights and weeks and even years bled into one another in Jesse's memory so he could hardly remember how long he had been coming back. That first night back, though, stood out in his memory.

"_I thought you said you was a bum for returning," Elizabeth's voice came in a chiding tone from behind Jesse as he knocked back his first cocktail of the evening. "What changed, sugar?"_

_He spun around to look at her. Her expression was one of open curiosity, with a hint of mischief lurking beneath the surface. She stood with one hand peremptorily on her hips, measuring him with her eyes, trying to figure him out. He couldn't see her friend lurking anywhere nearby for the moment, either, which he found interesting._

_He shrugged. "My brother wanted to come back, and didn't want to go alone. Where's your friend?"_

"_Oh, Lindsay? The boy she's going with is taking her to another party somewhere. Some huge to-do; it's downtown at the governor's mansion, so she couldn't resist going."_

Every night, they followed a similar routine. She would always find him first and greet him in an acerbically friendly way, to which he would always reply, "Want to dance?"

"Have you been practicing?" she would ask.

"Can't say as I have," he would say with a smile. She would heave a sigh theatrically and shake her head as she contemplated him.

"Promise you won't step on my toes?"

"Promise."

"Alright, then, sugar. Let's go."

Jesse's dancing improved greatly over the course of their interludes, and as they danced, he and Elizabeth would chat idly. Or rather, she chatted, and he listened. She told him stories of growing up in Brooklyn, of rebelling against her parents' rules so she could spend her nights in the perpetual party of the speakeasy scene, of their despair at their only daughter's choice of entertainment…

"They think all this," she said, gesturing to take in the entire speakeasy, one night, "is wrong. Not that they're against knocking a few back now and then themselves, but they don't think we should break the law to have our fun. I guess they're right, but what fun is there to be had outside of this?" She meant it to be rhetorical, so Jesse refrained from attempting to answer for her what fun could be had legally.

"So are you going to stop coming?" he had asked politely. She had given him an odd look.

"What's it to you, sugar? There are plenty of other girls to dance with." She'd shrugged, and he took that as a sign that the conversation had ended. They finished the dance, and then he excused himself and went back to the bar.

The next night, noticing her absence, he remained chained to the bar by some strange inhibition which he felt compelled to examine as he knocked back boxcars and martinis.

She was right, there were other girls to dance with. Other girls who were just as bold and funny as she…but no other girls for him. He wouldn't find a girl like Winnie in a place like this, and even if he did, what good would it do? He didn't think he could handle another separation like that in an eternity.

The thought of Winnie got him thinking about France again. What was it that she had thought? Was there anything he could have done to…no. He stopped the train of thought in its tracks. He had made a promise to Tuck. He'd never broken a promise yet, and he didn't plan to start now. It wasn't like he hadn't tried to get Tuck to lessen his restrictions, either…

"_Tuck, you know that Miles and I are going to head back to the States, right?" Jesse asked hesitantly, grabbing a stool and sitting across from his father._

"_That I do, Jesse. What is it I can do for you?" _

"_It's just…the Spanish Flu, Tuck. It's the first thing that's managed to get us sick since…well, you know. What if…what if Winnie dies from it?" Jesse could hardly give voice to the fear that had been plaguing him since he had seen the first headline about the deadly influenza epidemic which had affected even their family, causing each of them in turn to experience raging fevers and hacking coughs for the first time in decades. _

_Tuck looked sympathetically at Jesse. "I know this must be hard for you, Jess. I remember the cholera epidemic, and how afraid I was that it would take Mae…but Jesse, much as it grieves me to say this, you can't go back." Jesse stared at his hands as Tuck continued, "You said Winnie was to be married; it's her husband's responsibility and privilege to be at her bedside if she takes ill and passes away, not yours. It's too soon, Jesse. I wish there were some way we could arrange for you to see her, but there isn't. For that matter, do you really think her husband will leave her alone with you for any substantial amount of time, especially if she's ill? My heart goes out to you, Jesse, it really does, but there's nothing to be done. Even if you wouldn't be recognized, Winnie's probably a married woman by now, and your visiting her would certainly draw attention, which we can't afford."_

_Jesse nodded mutely. He had already halfway known what Tuck would say, but had decided to talk to him anyway. Unreleased from his promise, he had reaffirmed that he would stay away from Winnie and Treegap._

He was struck suddenly by a pang of homesickness. Running away hadn't been the answer he'd thought it would be; drinking and dancing his nights away in the United States' prohibition-induced speakeasies wasn't helping him to cope with anything. It was, if anything, ruining him…

He found Miles in a corner, talking and laughing with a plain, overweight blonde in a shockingly green dress who had a spectacular smile and a beautiful voice with a soft Bristol accent. She was gesturing exuberantly as she described her hometown to Miles, who was laughing at her caricatured descriptions of the townspeople and location, being very familiar with it himself. Jesse stood off to the side until she finished, and then stepped in; asking if she could please excuse them for a moment or two. She nodded and waved them off, then turned to engage a different young man in conversation. He wasn't much of a talker, though, it seemed, so within minutes they left for the dance floor.

"What is it, Jesse?" Miles asked.

"I just realized something, Miles."

"Well?"

"I want to go home. I miss Mae and Tuck. This isn't making me feel any better; it's just making me claustrophobic; I…"

"I know. Me, too. I was waiting for you to come to your senses, Jess. We'll make arrangements tomorrow."

Jesse nodded. Miles returned to the blonde he had been speaking to, and Jesse found Elizabeth lurking in a corner and asked her for a last dance. It couldn't hurt, after all, and it seemed like a proper farewell that way.


	8. Ch 7: French Fallout

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. Sorry this one took me so long to get up, but it's the end of the school year and finals are impending. That, and I was trying to come up with an appropriate rationale and emotional balance for the end of this entry… Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 7: Winnie's French Honeymoon

July 20, 1919 – September 23, 1919

It seemed to Winnie that, since losing Jesse, she had been wandering through a world that was slightly out of focus, slightly blurred at the edges, almost not-quite real. Seeing him, though, had thrown the world into sharp relief; waking her from the hazy dream her life had become.

"Is something the matter, Winnie?" Alex's voice punctured her thoughts. They were sitting in a charming little outdoor café, drinking tea and eating lunch as a gentle breeze blew through the plaza.

"No, nothing at all," she smiled, turning her attention to him. He took her hand gently and smiled at her.

"Guess what I have planned for tonight," he said, looking altogether too pleased with himself. Winnie shrugged at him, unable to guess. They had already climbed the Eiffel Tower together, and had an unexpected run-in with Jesse and Miles – _Chris and Marcus,_ she corrected herself firmly – and she couldn't guess what else he might have in mind.

"What is it?" she asked after taking another sip of tea.

"I got us tickets to L'Opera Populaire," he said, employing his awful French accent. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Alex, darling, I don't have any clothes for the opera-" she protested weakly.

"I took the liberty of ordering a new dress for you and having it delivered."

Winnie gaped. He certainly had pulled out all the stops for their honeymoon. "You're kidding," she said.

By way of an answer, he left some money on the table to cover the cost of their meal and led her away from the café, back to their hotel. True enough, there was a gorgeous new gown awaiting her made all out of crimson silk and cut in the latest fashion. A new pair of white silk gloves and sparkling ruby jewelry completed the ensemble. Winnie had to fight hard to keep from staring; she was unused to such extravagance, and couldn't understand why he would be lavishing her with such…priceless gifts. Surely being married didn't entail this level of devotion?

"Well, aren't you going to try it on?" he asked, looking as self-satisfied as a cat. She picked up the dress and disappeared into the next room, where she changed out of her plain blue dress into the lovely new one. She emerged hesitantly, unsure of how she looked in such finery.

"Why Winnie, you're stunning," he said, coming over to kiss her. She laughed at that; his flattery always had a reverse effect on her.

_If he really thought that, he wouldn't feel the need to say it all the time_, she thought as she endured his kiss. _Jesse never felt the need to compliment me all the time…oh, I do wish he'd stop already! _She pulled away from Alexander abruptly, unable to endure his affections anymore. She didn't want extravagance; she wanted simplicity. Or at least something more simplistic than this.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, bewildered.

"No. I just…No. You didn't." Winnie couldn't think of an acceptable explanation, so she fell silent.

He gave her a searching look. "We'll talk about this later. Our car has arrived to take us to the theater." He held out his arm to her, and she took it.

The opera was boring. Winnie had never much liked the French language to begin with, although she found the sung variety a vast improvement on ordinary spoken French. Still, she was too distracted with trying to come up with a rational reason for why she would have pulled away from him with an expression approaching revulsion to really enjoy the little of the performance she paid attention to.

When they returned to their suite, Winnie disappeared from the main room to change into her nightdress. She stood there before the mirror, staring at her reflection. Her eyes had become slightly sunken over the course of their French honeymoon, but that was probably mostly attributable to the strains of travel. She looked tired, worn down, and she wasn't even twenty yet!

_Why, Winifred, I daresay time's not treating you very well,_ she thought dryly as she slipped out of her silken gown and into her cotton nightgown. _Still, there's nothing to be done for it._

The sound of the door shutting behind her made Alexander visibly flinch, which at first made Winnie wonder why…until she saw her journal in his hands. She'd brought it with her to prevent it from being accidentally found by one of the servants, and because she had never expected to find Alexander flipping through it casually.

"What are you doing with that?" she demanded in a frosty tone. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. "Why are you reading my journal?"

"Why are you keeping secrets from me?" Alexander demanded, waving the journal in her face. "Why didn't you tell me about this Jesse character?"

Winnie was taken aback – had he really finished reading it? Then he must not have begun flipping through it this evening. She heaved a mental sigh of relief that she had never even considered committing the Tucks' secret to paper – she would have a difficult enough time out of this as it was.

"That, my dear Alexander, was none of your business. It is over and done with; a phase of my life I left behind at the altar."

"I daresay otherwise, Winifred – on the very morning of our wedding you wrote in this journal that you loved him and always would! That doesn't sound to me like a phase of your life that you left behind!"

"Oh, but I did, Alexander. How else do you think I would have managed to endure your clumsy touch and nighttime attentions if I hadn't forced myself to forget that I had once been loved; truly loved; by a man against whom you could never hope to measure! By a man who was gentle and kind and more than all you could hope to become!" she snapped. She was angry, and she'd be damned if she didn't let him know it. The insults, though…she hadn't even realized she'd thought such things until they were out of her mouth. Once they were, though, she found that she couldn't retract them without it tasting a lie.

"How dare you!" Alexander hissed. "So you weren't as innocent as you and your parents had me believe. Did you trick them too? Or did they decide to keep the truth about your 'kidnapping' secret so that you wouldn't bring dishonor on the family?" he sneered at her. The implication infuriated her.

It was Winnie's turn to gasp in shock. "How dare you!" she shouted, slapping him full across the face. "I was completely innocent when I met you; but how I wish I hadn't been! Then I'd at least have a decent memory to sustain me through my nights with you. Jesse would never have touched me against my wishes; for heaven's sake I was only 15 when we met!"

"Yes, but by your own admission you fell in love with him! Who knows what adulterous behavior you engaged in under the illusion of 'love', Winifred!" The contempt in his voice was unmistakable.

"So I fell in love. That's not a crime, last I heard. No, nobody even believes in love enough to deem it criminal, although doubtlessly they would if they thought it existed, judging by your reaction. You're just angry because you weren't the first in my heart, nor will you ever be. Jesse will always be my true love – you're merely his replacement since we can't be together; and a substandard replacement at that." If tones could kill, the venom in her voice would have struck him dead where he stood.

"Bitch," Alexander snarled, slapping her in the face so hard the crack echoed through the room and brought stinging tears to her eyes. "You are my wife, Winifred. Regardless of who may have occupied your heart – or your bed – first, you are mine. You may love him, but you married me. And you will live with the consequences of that for the rest of your life." His face was warped and twisted, she could hear the jealousy eating at his heart in every word he said. "I would have loved you, Winifred, but you've dishonored me. You've played the trollop and lied about it, and would have led me to believe that I was the only one in your life. You're despicable," he sneered.

He threw her journal at her feet and stalked out of the hotel suite, pausing at the door only long enough to shout back, "Don't bother thinking about leaving. If you do, I'll have all the police in Paris out hunting you down. You're my wife Winifred, 'til death do us part, and you're going to have to deal with that."

Winnie collapsed to her knees, crying, once he had left, and picked up her journal. "Oh, Jesse," she cried, looking at the ceiling, "I should have waited for you or run away to find you or something…but now I'm afraid it's too late…"

She held the journal to her chest as she cried, wishing against all hope that somehow things had been different. A knock at the door startled her into dropping her journal. A few pressed wildflowers that Jesse had picked for her one afternoon in the meadow fell out, and brought with them a few of the leaves from the ash tree which they had entangled with. An idea began to dawn in Winnie's mind…

"Madame, is everything alright?" a young woman's heavily accented voice came from the hall. "Monsieur said you were unwell."

"I'm fine, thank you," Winnie called back. "He's just a doting husband, is all."

_Doting mad, _she thought viciously, picking up the sprig of flowers and tangled leaves. She stared at them for a moment, then gently tucked them back between the pages.

_Yes, there is a way to change things. When I return, I'll drink the water. And then I'll run away. And if they never stop hunting me, well, Alexander has to die eventually. So I'll just change my name, gain some weight, head west…make it so nobody would recognize me…until I can find Jesse. Yes, that's what I'll do. And though Alex believes me to have been unfaithful – if one can call it that when the infidelity is supposed to have taken place before the marriage – then to hell with being a proper wife. I'll make his existence a living hell while I'm forced to spend it with him…and if I ever see Jesse Tuck again, not even my marriage vows will stop me from being with him. Forever…_

The idea comforted Winnie enough that she allowed herself to relax and fall asleep, drained from the evening's emotional exertions.


	9. Ch 8: A Cabaret Affair

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. Historical aspects are, as always, as accurate as a strange mix of Wikipedia, recollected facts from Advanced Placement history, and my imagination can make them. Which is not very. :-D This section is really kind of basically just here because I have a complete and utter fascination with nightclub culture from the 1920's. Make that an utter fascination with the 1920's, although more in Europe than America; I never did find the Prohibition era to be all that fascinating, but the 1920's in France and Germany's Weimar Republic? Flappers? Smoky nightclubs where diners were entertained by increasingly dark political commentaries acted out onstage by beautiful young rebels, interspersed with loud, raunchy, and comedic song and dance numbers by people in costumes fit to make anyone blush? Sounds like fun, and like a writer's dream. So there. That's the rationale behind this one. That, and I wanted to explore Jesse's emotional problems by showing how extreme his escape measures are what with the alcoholism and all. He's basically an escapist by this point, in case you couldn't tell. He's not a bad kid, he's just really screwed up emotionally and coping badly. The song they hear/see in the nightclub is "Don't Tell Mama" from the musical Cabaret, which is set in a pre-WWII Berliner nightclub. Don't worry, nothing in this chapter will be explicit, although it will touch on/hint at some adult themes due to the nature of the place and time. Thought I should warn you. Enjoy!

* * *

September 30, 1924 – June 12, 1932

Jesse wandered aimlessly down a wide avenue in Paris as the sun sank below the horizon. At least, his slow gait and casual demeanor would have indicated to a watcher that he was wandering about aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of evening Paris without any real concern for where he was headed, when in reality he had a very set destination.

He headed toward a run-down section of the city, and out of it on a back road, heading for home. The Tucks had taken up an agrarian existence, subsistence-farming, just outside of the city. He and Miles had taken jobs in the city, low-level ones with high turnover so that should they need to flee again their disappearance wouldn't really be noticed. The sun had completely set and an owl cooed into the night somewhere in the distance when he saw the warm golden light from the windows of the house he and his family had taken occupation of. He sighed as he entered.

"Long day, Jess?" Mae called from the kitchen where she was setting the table for the family's late dinner. Ever since he and Jesse had taken jobs in the city, the family's schedule had needed to be rearranged to accommodate their work.

"You could say that. Even though working at Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol is interesting, it really is quite exhausting," he muttered as he sat down heavily in a squashy armchair.

Interesting probably wasn't the proper word for it. The Grand-Guignol was probably one of Paris' most infamous theaters, known for its grim horror plays. Its location in the Pigalle district didn't help matters much, and in fact only increased the theater's infamy. Tonight, Jesse had needed to help remove seven fainted patrons from the hall. Seven! It was probably a record, and judging from the reaction Andre de Lorde, the writer, had, Jesse thought that it was a record the Grand-Guignol would attempt to break in the very near future.

"What play was it tonight?" Mae asked, sounding a tad disapproving. She didn't like what she viewed as the extreme immorality portrayed in the plays; indeed, even Jesse sometimes found himself squirming, and he thought he had seen it all.

"_Au Téléphone,"_ he replied dully. "Seven fainters. Andre just keeps getting worse. Or better, depending on how you look at it."

"Indeed," Mae muttered. "Where's Miles?"

"I don't know. The Odéon isn't very close to the Grand-Guignol."

"Why did you two even want to work in theatres?" Tuck asked, coming in from milking the cow. "There were plenty of other nondescript jobs you boys could have taken."

Jesse shrugged. He couldn't tell his parents about their time in the speakeasies, the time they spent dancing and drinking. They were from a different world, they wouldn't understand how comforting the dim lighting and blaring music and parade of people could be.

"They turn over quickly. We could disappear again on a moment's notice, and none would be the wiser," was all that he said.

Tuck and Mae shared an unreadable look. Miles trudged in before they said anything though.

"Evening," he muttered, taking off his hat and coat and settling into a chair across from Jesse. "Everyone have a nice day?"

------------

Months passed by. Given slightly more responsibility as assistant to Camille Choisy, the director, and Pauline Maxa, the lead actress, on show nights rather than a generic usher, Jesse found himself going long stretches when he was able to return home earlier than Mae and Tuck were expecting him.

It was on these nights that he would wander down the road to the Moulin Rouge, and spend an evening drinking and watching a Cabaret show. He knew it wasn't appropriate, but he went anyway. There was one performer, a young woman by the name of Maxine, who he loved to hear sing. She had a lovely voice, but only performed occasionally. When he listened to her, he was able to forget himself and all that he had seen and experienced.

"Evening, monsieur," the doorman said, letting Jesse into the building and taking his hat and coat. Jesse gave him a brief nod and wandered into the main room.

"Fancy seeing you here, little brother." Jesse jumped as someone spoke in his ear, and wheeled around to see Miles sitting down at his table, a drink in each hand. He passed one over to Jesse.

"What are you doing here, Miles?"

"Wondering where you've been running off to. Mae and Tuck are wondering too. Don't worry, I won't tell them," Miles added hastily and Jesse's mildly panicked expression, "but I must confess to some curiosity as to why you're sitting here."

"It passes the time. And I like it. What more reason do I need?" Jesse asked mildly, taking a sip of his drink.

Onstage, Maxine began to sing, and Jesse didn't hear Miles' retort. He knew enough French to carry on a conversation, but got lost trying to keep track of syllables while she sang. For all he cared, she could have been singing a bawdy drinking song or a heartbreaking ballad, and he wouldn't have known the difference. She finished to scattered applause, and strolled offstage.

"Oh, Jesse," Miles gave a long-suffering sigh. "You like that girl."

"No, I don't. She sings beautifully. That's all."

"Right," Miles laughed.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Miles," Jesse muttered.

"Prove that I don't."

------------

It was late spring, and Jesse felt the wanderlust stirring up his blood once more. They'd been in France for what, five years? and he felt the need to move on. Miles seemed to be getting complacent in his duties, so Jesse proposed that they head out.

"And leave Mae and Tuck again?"

"How much do they really need us, Miles? They don't, we're just taking up space. And since we don't want to be cut off from society, you know we make Tuck nervous, being seen day in and day out by people who might recognize that we never age. Besides, with our longevity, we should be out seeing the world, exploring. Remember when we used to play explorers, Miles? Why aren't we doing that no more?"

Eventually Miles agreed and the boys set out for Berlin, which had been experiencing something of a revival after the Great War. Unfortunately, as they found when they arrived, the country's economy was again plummeting, and xenophobic tendencies were resurfacing, along with a grim outlook on the part of many of the nation's citizens. Still, the night clubs were roaring, the drink was good, and the girls were saucy. Jesse had found his perfect haven to escape.

"Remind me why we're here again?" Miles asked when, not an hour after arriving in the city, they witnessed a street fight instigated over political disagreement.

"Because it's something different."

"We've been to Berlin before, Jesse."

"Yes, but Miles – Berlin is never the same as it was the last time you were there! Haven't you heard of all the changes emanating from this place? Art, literature, music, philosophy – it's all here!" Jesse laughed at his older brother and began to unpack his things in the rickety flat they had rented.

"Yes, and you're so _very _interested in all of that." Miles rolled his eyes. "And what party are we off to tonight?"

"I don't know. I'm sure we can find an interesting Kabarett," he tossed back.

"Kabarett?" Miles tested out the unfamiliar term.

"The Berliners' answer to French cabaret," Jesse supplied.

"Oh, dear," Miles muttered, rolling his eyes. "Let's not get into too much trouble, now, shall we? I'd really like to not have to leave in a great rush."

"Miles, please. When have I led you astray?"

"Anytime I let you. Every time you're drunk. And a few other times besides," Miles answered mutinously.

"As I said," Jesse called, clearly not listening, "clearly you're overreacting."

------------

The club was dark, and thick smoke hung in the air from the cigars of so many people seeking an escape. A bright spotlight was determinedly focused on the stage, where the Master of Ceremonies was telling jokes to great response in German spoken with a thick French accent. What a Frenchman was doing in the Weimar Republic, Jesse could only guess, but it couldn't be much different than what he was doing there.

Girls in tight, short dresses wandered about the room, taking orders from the primarily male patrons. There were others, occupying dark corners, who Jesse could barely make out; periodically, one of the patrons would wander over to where they were and one of the girls would lead him into a back room. Jesse hadn't seen one of them come back yet, and he had been watching for a while. He was curious as to what went on back there, but didn't quite have the courage to go over there to find out – nor did he want to ask Miles and be laughed at for his trouble.

"…Lydia Baron!" the MC's voice calling out for the next act pierced through to Jesse's awareness. Applause erupted all around him, and he looked at the stage. A young woman with her light brown hair cut into a bob that framed her face, dressed in a tightly laced corset and lacy shorts, was perched on a stool, batting her thickly made-up eyes at the customers. One black-stockinged leg was drawn up to her chest and she leaned on it slightly, as the volume of applause increased. Abruptly, she held up a gloved hand and the entire room fell silent.

"Mama," she said softly, amazingly in English, for Jesse found that he could understand her, "thinks I'm living in a convent." Whistles and shouts greeted that statement, and she grinned suddenly, continuing impishly, "A secluded little convent – in the southern part of France. _Mama_ doesn't even have an inkling that I'm working in a nightclub…in a pair of lacy _pants._" She rose from her stool, the spikes of her tall heels clicking faintly on the stage as she settled her weight onto them. An accompanist struck a note on a piano as she wandered down the stage steps and across the floor scattered with tables at which men were eating and drinking as they watched.

"So please, sir, if you run into my mama, don't reveal my indiscretion," she sang as she wandered over to one man in the front of the room, "give a working girl a chance." She grabbed his drink and took a sip from it before wandering on. The tempo of the song picked up, and she began to dance her way around the room. "Hush up! Don't tell Mama – shush up! Don't tell mama; don't tell mama! Whatever you do."

She danced over to the next table, leaning over a man's shoulder and staring wide-eyed at him as she sang, "If you had a secret, you bet I would keep it. I would never tell on you! I'm breaking every promise that I made her – so won't you kindly do a girl a great big favor? And please, my sweet potato, keep this, from the mater," she kissed him on the cheek before turning to another man, "though my dance is not against the law!" She patted him on the head and wandered over to the next table as if she recognized someone there. "You can tell my papa, that's alright, because he comes in here every night!" she sang at him, "just don't tell mama what you saw!"

Patrons all around the room were beginning to laugh at the girl's antics as she continued to dance and flirt around the room. A chorus line wandered out of the wings and dispersed through the crowd, mimicking her in their own unique ways as they sang, "Mama thinks I'm on a tour of Europe…just a couple of my school chums. Oh, and a lady chaperone!" They laughed at that line as though it were a very funny joke. "Mama doesn't even have an inkling that I left them all in Hamburg – and am touring on my own!" Jesse smiled at that, as one of the dancers, who would have been quite plain were it not for her bubbling enthusiasm for singing which made it impossible for him to tear his eyes away from her, winked broadly at him, advancing toward his and Miles' table as the girls continued to sing, "So please sir, if you run into my mama, don't reveal my indiscretion-"

The first girl belted out, "Just leave well enough alone!" and turned to stride up to the stage. "Hush up!"

"Don't tell mama!" the chorus line, well, chorused.

"Shush up!"

"Don't tell mama! Don't tell mama, whatever you do!" the chorus replied, and Jesse noticed the plain girl was on her knees "begging" one of the patrons in accordance with her character, who laughed and handed her his drink. She took a sip and winked at him.

"If you had a secret you bet I could keep it! I would _never _tell on you! You wouldn't want to get me in a pickle-" the soloist proclaimed, now draping herself over the MC.

"And have her go and cut me off without a nickel! So let's trust one another and keep this from my mother, though I'm still as pure as mountain snow!" all the girls proclaimed together.

The plain girl had reached Jesse's table and climbed on top of it. "You can tell my uncle here and now because he's my agent anyhow!" she belted out, striking a dramatic pose.

"But don't tell mama what you know!" all of the girls chorused together.

"You can tell my sister, suits me fine: just yesterday she joined the line!" a girl in the middle sat in a man's lap and belted out.

"But don't tell mama what you know!"

"You can tell my brother, that ain't grim: if he squeals on me, I'll squeal on him!" another girl from the far end of the club sang from the top of another table.

The girls on top of tables jumped down from them and headed for the stage as the song reached its finale, "Don't tell mama bitte; don't tell mama, please, sir; don't tell mama what you know!"

They all struck various poses, the only similarities among them being a finger held to pursed lips as the first soloist commanded with a wink, "If you see my Mummy, mum's the word!"

The lights died as the piano struck its final note and the room erupted into applause.

The MC returned to the stage, and resumed talking in German. What little Jesse could make out told him that the soloist who had just been onstage was from America – _That would explain the English,_ Jesse thought – and that she'd be back later on in the evening. He wasn't interested in her, though.

Jesse got up from the table.

"Where are you off to?" Miles asked.

"Nowhere important," Jesse replied, his words slurring slightly. He looked at the table – had he really gone through six drinks already? He supposed he must have, those girls had kept bringing by replacements whenever he finished without his even realizing it, and he had kept drinking them.

"Jess, you're drunk. Sit back down."

"No, I'll be fine, Miles. Back in a few." Jesse stumbled slightly as he wandered away from the table. Miles shook his head, worried about his little brother but knowing that Jesse wouldn't accept his help as anything other than interference when he was like this. He was of the firm belief that help was wasted on those who didn't want it, and so he had resolved not to help his little brother until such time as Jesse asked for it – painful though it was to watch Jesse rip himself up inside over things he couldn't change. It had been years – surely he should have gotten over what happened in Treegap by now?

Jesse wandered over to the wall where the girls stood, waiting for men to approach, without a second thought for Miles. He saw the plain girl standing against the wall, talking idly with the soloist from earlier in halting, thickly accented, but still good, English.

"…Ja. This is alright place to work. I like being here better than the last place. Nice people, good money, interesting city. I am able to take care of myself here."

"But don't you ever miss your family, Catrin?" Lydia asked, brushing her dark hair behind her ears.

Catrin nodded. "This is part of living. I miss them, ja, but…" she shrugged, "My life took a different path."

"That's true enough. I still can't quite believe I'm living here now, but there are only so many options…"

Suddenly the two women noticed Jesse standing there.

"Can one of us help you?" Catrin asked, her green eyes zeroing in on his. She smiled broadly and tucked her light brown hair behind an ear.

"Yes, uh, hi. I'm Christopher," Jesse introduced himself casually. The girls looked at each other and giggled.

"Pleased to be meeting you, Christoph," Catrin said, pronouncing his name by its German cognate.

"Pleasure," Lydia muttered, shaking his hand and giving him an odd look. "Is there something we can do for you?" she asked bluntly.

Jesse was confused. "Excuse me?"

"I don't imagine you came over here just to introduce yourself and strike up a conversation, sir," Lydia answered matter-of-factly, "considering where and who we are. So was there something you wanted from us?"

Jesse swayed unsteadily on his feet, and suddenly remembered his curiosity from earlier. "I want to go back there," he muttered, pointing to the door that he had seen the girls leading men through earlier.

Lydia and Catrin waited for him to say more.

"Well?" Lydia eventually asked. "With which one of us? Or were you thinking of trying to get us both, because I can tell you now, that won't happen."

"Begging your pardon?" Jesse was really confused. Lydia looked at him like he'd gone crazy. Perhaps he had.

"Which one of us were you intending to hire?" she said slowly and clearly, as if his comprehension problem had been one of not hearing her.

"Uh…" he looked at Catrin blankly. She stepped forward. "See you later, Lydia," she said softly as she took Jesse's arm and led him through the doorway and down a long hallway. Most of the doors leading off of it were closed, and Catrin led him to a door toward the far end of the hall.

"This is my room," she said quietly, unlocking the door. It was sparsely furnished with a bed, a desk/vanity covered with various bottles and jars of perfume and cosmetics, a chair, an armoire, and a bookshelf. There were few books on the shelf, and all of those were in German. There was a framed photograph of Catrin and her family on it, with a candle sitting before it. A statue of the Virgin Mary stood beside the photograph on the other side of the candle with a rose laid before it. A hand-braided rug in navy blue and white covered the tile floor beside the bed which was covered with a patchwork quilt. Catrin let him into the room and closed the door behind him. He stumbled into the room and sat down on the chair, regretting having drunk so much.

"Are you alright?" she asked, seeing that he made no moves toward her.

"I'm fine," Jesse replied. "Just a bit dizzy is all. Is this all that there is back here?"

Catrin looked stunned, and a little insulted. "This is where all of us girls live. There's only so much space for all of us. We have as much space as we can. Most of our visitors aren't here to see where we live, anyway," she answered, a hint of frost in her voice.

Jesse looked at her bookshelf. "What books are these?"

"Mostly works by Goethe. And some volumes of poetry." Catrin was thoroughly confused now. She had never had a man be more interested in her room than her body before, and found him to be quite strange.

"Interesting," Jesse said. "Somehow I never figured a dancer in a nightclub to be much of one for classical German literature. Shows me for being so shortsighted, eh?

"Sir?"

"And this photo. Is this your family?"

"Yes."

"Where'd you take it?"

"In Dresden, where I come from."

"I've never been to Dresden, what's it like?"

Catrin shrugged. "I have a hard time describing things in English."

Jesse nodded. "Fair enough."

"Where do you come from?" She was curious as to what kind of a place would produce such a character as this one – a man who was more interested in the furnishings of one's room than the woman who occupied it. Not that she was about to complain.

"America," Jesse mumbled. He'd have said more, but suddenly the room was spinning. "Whoa," he gasped out, then stood shakily.

"Why do you girls bring men back here?" he asked innocently, still not having figured out what she was. She stared at him, open-mouthed with shock.

"You don't know? You honestly don't know?" Catrin gaped.

"No. I was trying to figure it out, but didn't want to ask anyone else."

She sighed in exasperation and looked away from him. "We sell ourselves," she said in a quiet, ashamed voice. Understanding dawned on Jesse at last.

"You're a prostitute?" he asked in astonishment. "I've…I'm in a room, alone, with a prostitute?" He laughed somewhat crazily and Catrin backed away from him slowly. "Good heavens, what am I doing?! Winnie…she'd be ashamed of me. Never want to see me again."

"Winnie?" Catrin asked.

"No. She'd never have anything more to do with me," Jesse's words were slurring even worse now as the alcohol hit him in full force. "I've lost her, Catrin. She married that…man…back home. And now I've lost her forever. She'll never wait for me. Even if she would, I'm here, alone, with a prostitute! Oh, God!"

Catrin was at a loss for words. The young man was obviously in distress over a woman he could never have, and she didn't know what she would say to that even in her own language. So she gave him a hug.

The alcohol in Jesse's brain clouded his judgment, and he responded to her hug in kind, giving her a kiss. It wasn't long before they were pulling at each other's clothing, and tumbling backward onto Catrin's bed.

------------

"Good morning, love," Catrin whispered as the sun broke through the windows. Jesse turned to look at her. He kissed the top of her head and murmured a similar greeting.

They'd been carrying on for some time now. Miles had grown suspicious of where Jesse spent his nights, but been unable to prove it. Jesse had almost conquered his guilt over being unfaithful to Winnie.

_You can't be unfaithful to a woman you can't be with,_ he stubbornly reminded himself. _Besides, Catrin is a lovely girl. You could have done a lot worse._

"What time is it?" Jesse asked as Catrin rose and began to dress.

"Eight o'clock. Time to get up and get ready for the day."

"How do you do it? Wake up so early after working so late? Not to mention carrying on with me?" he asked abruptly as he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Because I have to," she replied sadly. "I have duties, responsibilities to others. I can't ignore them for my own comfort."

------------

The atmosphere in Berlin was getting darker. Jesse could feel it as he walked home that fall evening. Political clashes were becoming more and more common. The Nazi party was gaining power – much to the displeasure of many Berliners. The Nazis were denouncing the city as a haven of vice, which in all fairness Jesse supposed it was, but that wasn't the message that had made the city's denizens grow fearful and wary. They were also espousing a message of hate, to those who could read between the lines, and it made the populace uncomfortable.

He arrived at the nightclub, eager and hesitant at the same time to see Catrin. His guilt about being with her was no longer about betraying Winnie, but about being unfair to her. She was falling in love with him, had said so, but he couldn't reciprocate and knew it. His heart would always belong to Winnie, regardless of who he spent his nights with, and the guilt of inadvertently hurting Catrin was tearing him up.

"Christoph!" Catrin squealed, running over to him when he appeared in the club. "I was waiting for you!" She kissed him then, and hugged him tight.

"I'm very happy to see you, too," he said softly, hugging her back. She was a slight little thing, willowy and delicate, and he felt as though he would break her if he squeezed to hard.

They settled down at a table in one of the club's shadowy corners and watched as a political farce unfolded on the stage. Caricatured Nazis bumbled around the stage as the play's heroes fooled them and tripped them up in _Punch and Judy _style. The entire club was laughing, but it was anxious laughter. The patrons in this nightclub knew that the Nazis were not to be messed with, that such free-spirited opposition to the party's positions and actions would not be tolerated much longer.

They had sensed the growing darkness in Germany, and it was frightening them.

Catrin held tightly to Jesse's arm, her own anxiety about the political climate causing her to unconsciously seek reassurance from the people around her. He squeezed her arm. He had yet to tell her that Miles had insisted that they leave Berlin within the week. He didn't want to hurt her, and knew that it would.

After the performance, she took his hand and led him to the back. When they were in her room, she leaned in for a kiss, but he pulled away.

"What is it? Did I do something?" Catrin asked him uncertainly.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong. I did." Catrin looked at him in puzzlement, and he continued. "I let you fall in love with me, when I couldn't do the same for you."

"Love takes time, Christoph. I can wait," she said with simple honesty. She really believed he would come to love her.

"I'm not being fair to you, Catrin. I love someone else. I always have."

Her face fell, and she sat down heavily. "I knew that. I hoped you would learn to love me instead," she whispered.

"I hoped I would, too, Catrin," he lied, trying to make things easier on her, "but I haven't. And now…"

"What?"

"Now I have to leave Berlin."

"What? Why?!" she asked, tears springing up in her eyes.

"Because I don't want to play with your emotions, Catrin. And if I stay here, that's exactly what I'll do. You deserve better."

"But Christoph-" she began, but he cut her off by leaving the room and quickly exiting the club. The sounds of Catrin crying followed him out. Miles was waiting for him by the exit.

"Did you say your goodbyes?" he asked with a disapproving glance.

"Don't judge, Miles. You have no idea how hard that was. She's not a bad girl. She's just stuck in an unfortunate circumstance."

"Well, be that as it may, you're lucky I'm the one who was here with you. If Mae or Tuck had been here-"

"If either of them had been here, it never would have happened." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Where are we off to next?"

"Back home."

"Where is home?" Jesse asked rhetorically, opening a bottle of rum and taking a swig.

Miles didn't have an answer. He merely gave his little brother a concerned look before turning his attention back to the road.


	10. Ch 9: Mae Elizabeth Jackson

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. Reviews on any section would be appreciated, just to reiterate the point. Historical aspects are, as always, as accurate as a strange mix of Wikipedia, recollected facts from Advanced Placement history, and my imagination can make them. Which is not very. :-D Terribly sorry for this taking so long – being on summer vacation, I don't have access to my university's marvelous Internet connection, so it takes a bit longer for me to get things posted. That, and I've been busy having frivolous adventures at Disneyland, the beach, my friends' houses, and in my mind (naps are nice. I don't get enough of them.). That being said, here's the new entry and I'll really try to get the next one out more quickly! Thanks for your patience:)

* * *

October 1, 1919 - October 27, 1923

They returned to Alexander's house in Clearwater with the air between them still heavy with anger, disappointment, sorrow, and silence. Despite that, Winnie was still glad to be back – she'd been extremely ill on the return voyage.

"I'm going to go lay down," Winnie said abruptly upon re-entering their home. "I don't feel well."

"Should I send for the doctor?" Alex asked with soft concern, and Winnie briefly reflected that he wasn't a _bad_ man, just a stupid one. Still, it all amounted to basically the same thing in her eyes at this point.

"I'll be fine," she answered icily and tromped up the stairs without another word or glance for him. Her stomach turned over as she reached the top of the stairs, and she dashed into their bathroom and proceeded to be sick.

"Winnie!" Alex knocked on the door. "Winnie, what in heavens' name is wrong?!"

"Nothing, Alex. Go away. I'll be fine, I told you."

"I'm going to call the doctor anyway. This isn't like you, Winnie, and I'm not believing your sea-sickness story anymore."

Winnie groaned as she emerged from the bathroom. She felt too weak to protest and get into a fight, though, so she allowed Alexander to help her into their room and onto their bed, and didn't protest when he called for the doctor immediately.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Jackson," Doctor Wilson muttered as he came into the room. He was an elderly man who had tended to the health needs of the citizens of Treegap and Clearwater for as long as Winnie could remember. "What seems to be the problem?"

"She's been sick to her stomach for the last three weeks. The first week was in Paris, and the next two were at sea, but she's still sick now," Alexander offered before Winnie could even open her mouth. "Clearly it can't be sea-sickness, and no illness that I know of should have lasted this long."

"I see, I see. Has she had a fever? Headache? Cough? Any symptom other than being sick to her stomach?"

"No, other than the nausea, I've been as healthy as ever," Winnie answered.

"It's true, doctor. And even the nausea hasn't been plaguing her continually. It seems to come and go with surprising irregularity."

"Hmm…I see. Mrs. Jackson, please forgive the question, but how long have the two of you been married?"

"A few months."

"And when was the last time you bled?"

Winnie blushed scarlet. Surely it wasn't proper for him to be discussing this with her!

"I can't remember," she answered quietly.

"Longer than three or four weeks?"

She thought for a moment.

"Quite possibly."

"Ah. Well, in that case, barring evidence to the contrary, it would seem to me that you are in the family way. The nausea should go away on its own shortly. Congratulations," he finished, before wandering out of the room, chuckling in his grandfatherly way.

"A…baby?" Alexander muttered as if in awe. Winnie felt her heart stop and her stomach turn to ice.

_No! I can't be…this can't be happening!_ She thought frantically.

Alexander gave her an abrupt hug. "This is wonderful, Winnie! Now you can finally settle down and forget about that Jesse character and behave like a proper wife!"

_No! This is horrible! I have to find some way around this! But…it's not the child's fault who its parents are…oh, what ever can I do?!_

"Yes, Alex, it is wonderful," she answered demurely. "If you don't mind, I'm tired."

"Of course you are! You mustn't exhaust yourself, Winnie, love, while you're carrying our child." He kissed her forehead. "I'll be in the library if you need me."

He damn near danced out the door, blissfully unaware of her mutinous stare as it followed him out.

Winnie closed the door behind him, sighing heavily, and sagged against it. The knowledge felt like a death sentence. He'd never let go of her now. She'd never find her way back to Jesse. If she left now, Alexander would never stop hunting her, never let her go in peace. If she drank the water now, what would it do to her child? No matter how she loathed Alex and his ways, she wouldn't put her baby at risk. She rested a hand on her belly and sighed, wondering what she would do now.

* * *

Winnie paused beneath the old oak tree on the front lawn, looking up into the flaming foliage as an unseasonably warm breeze flowed around them.

"Indian Summer must have arrived," she said quietly. Before Alex could answer, a stabbing pain shot through Winnie's body and she cried out.

"What is it?" Alex demanded.

"Call the midwife," she snarled. "I think it's time."

* * *

The pain stabbing through her was enough to make Winnie wonder why any woman ever bothered to have more than one child. She screamed as a particularly violent pain coincided with a protesting kick from the baby inside her.

"Now, Mrs. Jackson, don't wear yourself out screaming," Mrs. Turner, the Clearwater midwife said soothingly, taking Winnie's arm and pacing around the room with her. "We'll just walk for a bit, until your baby's ready to come out, shall we?"

Winnie squeezed the poor woman's hand so hard she was surprised it didn't crumble away beneath her own.

"I'll kill him, this is all his fault!" she snarled, pondering all the grievous bodily harm she wished to inflict on Alexander.

"Every woman says that in the birthing room," Mrs. Turner said softly, "but once they see their babes, they lose all thought of inflicting injury on their men. You'll forgive him."

"I'll never forgive him! I hate him! I wish he'd die! Ah!" Winnie shrieked as another contraction ripped her apart from the inside out. "He's ruined my life," she sobbed. The midwife looked concerned, but said nothing. She patted Winnie comfortingly on the shoulder and let her cry as she needed to.

* * *

The labor process was long and hard and Winnie had spent hours screaming and crying by the end of it.

"Come on, Winifred, push!" Mrs. Turner encouraged her. Through the exhaustion that was beginning to fog over her brain, Winnie vaguely registered that there seemed to be a lot of blood on Mrs. Turner's hands.

_Surely not all births are this messy?_ Winnie wondered, attempting to muster the courage to comply with Mrs. Turner's insistence that now was the time to push.

"I see the head! Come on, Winifred, you can do this. Just one more push, and you're done!"

Winnie shrieked in pain as she pushed the baby out and sagged back against her pillows in exhaustion. Protesting cries floated to her ears from somewhere across the room.

"Mrs. Turner?" she murmured.

"Yes, dear?"

"What is it?"

"You have a lovely, healthy little girl. Here," Mrs. Turner put a bundle of blanket in Winnie's arms and fussed around for a moment until Winnie could see her daughter's face. Tears trickled down her cheek.

"She's beautiful."

"That she is, Mrs. Jackson. Congratulations."

Mrs. Turner turned to leave the room, and Alexander forced his way into the room, wrinkling his nose at the smell of sweat and blood in the room.

"Well?" he asked Winnie after a moment of silence reigning between them.

"Well what?" Winnie asked wearily without even looking at him.

"What is it?"

"A girl. Her name is Mae." She kissed her daughter's forehead and smiled at the infant.

"Mae?" Alexander looked at her questioningly. "That's a rather tarty name, don't you think."

"I think it's a beautiful name!" Winnie protested loudly. "But since you hate it so much, you can pick her middle name."

"Elizabeth. It was my mother's name."

"Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth."

"Mae Elizabeth Jackson it is, then."

* * *

"Mama!" Mae called from the crib. "Mama! Mama!"

Winnie looked over at her little daughter. She'd only just begun speaking two days ago, and now Winnie was hard-pressed to find a moment of silence. It was hard to believe her life had changed so drastically since she'd met Jesse. She set down her knitting and wandered into the nursery, where she picked up her daughter.

"What is it, sweetheart?" she asked quietly. It seemed her only happy moments anymore were in these quiet times she spent alone with Mae.

"Birdie!" Mae pointed out the window and shrieked with laughter, clapping her chubby little hands together.

"So it is, sweetie. Do you recognize the birdie?"

Mae nodded solemnly.

"Go see?" she asked, her green eyes wide.

"Oh, alright," Winnie said, and pulled a sweater over Mae's head. "Let's go outside and see the birdie."

It was a brisk late autumn day, and the wind carried the smell of apples and bonfires to them. The chill made goosebumps prickle up on her skin, but she ignored them and walked with Mae to the tree the bird was nesting in. It was a sparrow, twitching twigs into the perfect arrangement for a winter nest as they watched.

"Pretty birdie," Mae murmured appreciatively, then turned to look at Winnie. "See Nana soon?" she asked hopefully.

It was such a seemingly random question that Winnie had to think about it for a moment. Clearly Mae was more aware of changes around her than she had previously thought, if she associated the change of season to the arrival of the holidays when they would return to Treegap and see the Fosters.

"Yes, Mae, we'll see Nana soon."

They went back inside.

"Oh, Winnie, there you are. What were you doing outside with Elizabeth?"

"Mae," Mae corrected him, sticking her tongue out at him and folding her little arms over her chest.

"No, sweetie, your name's Elizabeth," he laughed, giving Winnie a sharp look. Winnie just shrugged at him, keeping her expression carefully neutral.

"Mae and I were just watching the sparrows building nests," Winnie answered.

"Elizabeth," he said firmly. "No child of mine is going to have such a low-class, tarty name as Mae."

"Mae!" the child called out gleefully.

"This is a non-argument, Alex. The child's name is Mae, legally notarized that way, and it's the name she responds to. Deal with it."

He glared at her, but let the subject lie.

"Come inside, Winifred, and bring _Elizabeth_ with you," he said shortly.

Winnie had to quell an urge to leave the child to play outside until he called her by her proper name, but decided that would be more of a danger to Mae than a lesson to Alexander. She followed mutinously behind him.

* * *

Winnie woke abruptly as the door to her bedroom slammed. She checked the clock – it was after midnight.

"Alex? What are you doing up so late?" she grumbled.

He muttered something incoherent in reply, which she didn't bother to decipher. As he crawled into bed beside her, she could smell the acrid tang of alcohol clinging to him.

"Alex, have you been drinking again?"

"Wha's it t'you? Nah lye ya care, neways," he slurred.

"I won't have a drunkard in the house, not with Mae so little," Winnie said sternly, sitting up so she was looking down at him.

"Shu' up, yah're jus' a tramp; why I should listen t'you?"

Winnie didn't bother dignifying that with a response, so she stood to leave the room.

"Ge' back here!" he shouted at here.

"I will not. Alex, you're drunk. We'll talk about this in the morning."

"No, we won'. Yah know we won'. Yah've planned it tha' way. Yah're even turning me daugh'er agains' me. Wha'd I do tha' was so bad, Winnie? Eh? Wha'd I do?"

"You impugned my honor, and mistreated me. And now you accuse me of turning our daughter against you. Alex, you have problems."

Winnie turned to head down the stairs, and Alex followed her, shouting curses and abuse after her. Winnie had never had to deal with his drunkenness before, so this was an altogether new and terrifying situation. She reached the bottom of the stairs with him on her heels and he began to hit her, shouting more and slurring more, so all she could hear was a drunken roar behind the ringing of her ears.

"Enough!" she screamed, grabbing a heavy book off the coffee table and swinging it at him, then dropping it in horror after he crumpled to the floor, unconscious, and she realized what she'd done.

Winnie began sobbing. Somewhere her life had taken a drastic turn for the horribly wrong, and she didn't know how or why. She ran upstairs and dressed quickly, not even knowing what she could do, where she could go. She packed a small bag of essentials for herself, then another for Mae, before waking the maid.

"Yes, ma'am?" the girl asked quietly.

Winnie handed her Mae's bag. "Take Mae to my mother's house in Treegap tomorrow morning, before Mr. Jackson wakes, please. I'd do it myself, but I'm afraid Mr. Jackson's been taken ill. Can you do that for me?"

"Certainly, ma'am," the girl answered demurely, taking the bag and going back to her room.

With Mae provided for, Winnie set about searching for the money she knew Alex kept stashed around the house. She was leaving. She didn't know where she was going, or what she'd do when she got there, but she was leaving.

She called a carriage and asked the driver to take her to Treegap.

* * *

"Mrs. Jackson?" the driver woke her from her doze when they'd reached her mother's home. "We're here."

"Thank you. You may return to Clearwater now. I'm just going to stay with my mother. Thank you."

She waited until he was out of sight before running into the woods.

There was the tree, with the spring still burbling up beneath it. Winnie stood there for a long moment, just staring at it, her mind warring with itself about whether or not she should drink from it.

She took a small bottle out of her bag and filled it with the clear water. Now she could think about it at her leisure, and not make the decision in the heat of the moment and emotions.

"I wonder," she murmured to herself, looking at the path through the woods. Yes, she could find the Tucks' cottage again, and stay there for a while. But she could only stay briefly. She had to go find Jesse Tuck – he would know what to do, and if nothing else, he could at least comfort her.

She set off on the path toward the cottage in the woods, feeling strangely liberated and at peace considering what had just transpired.


	11. Ch 10: Jesse's Depression

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Tuck Everlasting

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. And now for the groveling: I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS HAS TAKEN SO LONG. My most abject apologies. (And many thanks for the nice notes I've received even while this has been on hiatus.) My life's been kind of hectic: I'm a university junior, and my major's pretty intense. I've been having health problems, too, so that hasn't been helping. And aside from that there's the simple issue of the fact that I have little to no time for personal projects just because of everything that's happening, and so I usually invest my spare time into things like outings with my friends, or my original novel that I hope to get published within the next two years here…so working on this fic has kinda been last on my priorities. Again, ABJECT APOLOGIES and MUCH GROVELING. I'm sorry! I also apologize for the brevity of this entry, but to be honest, Jesse's piece of history is a bit less interesting to me than Winnie's…at least for now.

Ahem. Back to the story then, and I'll be trying to update at least every week from now on. I can't promise, since I'm in the middle of midterms and I really have to do well this semester so I can study abroad next year, but I'm going to make a sincere effort.

* * *

June 15, 1932 – August 17, 1933

"Lucky we got out of Germany when we did, Jess. The country's gone completely crazy. Riots in the streets, economic crashes, you name it, they've got it," Miles said grimly by way of a morning greeting. He tossed the newspaper at the foot of Jesse's bed; Jesse, for his part, merely groaned and covered his face with a pillow.

"My head hurts," he complained.

"If you hadn't drunk so much on the trip back, Jess, you wouldn't be having that problem," Miles retorted accusingly.

"Shut up. I don't need you going all big brotherly on me."

"Jess, I am your big brother. That's my job. And you've got problems and need some serious help."

"Haha…problems. I've got more than problems, Miles, I have fucking catastrophes. Will you just go away and let me rot in peace?"

"See, I would, except that rotting implies that you would experience death somewhere in the middle of all this. Which you won't. You can't keep doing this to yourself, Jess. You have to live your damn life, not wait in abeyance until some magical fairy who's never going to appear sprinkles you with pixie dust and gives you Winnie back. She's married. Hell, this point, she's probably a mother. Several times over. Accept it. Deal with it. Let it go. And move on with your life."

"It's not that easy, Miles."

"You really think I don't know that?"

Jesse couldn't think of a good answer. They remained in awkward silence for a few moments.

"Come on, get up already, we have to be at the dock by noon. We're heading back to the States. Tuck and Mae are gonna meet us there. Europe's no place for us right now. You need a change of scenery something fierce, and this continent is going insane. For that matter, I don't want to be here when Germany's madness starts spreading."

"The States aren't very well off, either, Miles."

"Yeah, I know. At least they're home. Get up."

--

Jesse stood and stretched his aching muscles, pausing for a long moment in the baking warmth of the sun. The air smelled like scorched earth and the humidity shimmered around him in a raspberry- and dandelion-scented haze.

"Y'alright there, Jess?" Miles called over, pausing for a moment to wipe sweat off his brow.

"Oh, yeah. Fantastic. Whose idea was it to come to California again?"

"Tuck's."

"And why did we agree?"

"Because if we'd stayed on the East Coast, you'd have pined your ass away. The Midwest is a dust bowl right now. California was the only option left."

"It's hotter than the hinges of Hell. And at least in Hell, we wouldn't have to work in the sun."

"Well, Hell's a bit out of the question, ain't it? Sooner you get them berries picked, the sooner we can get paid and go somewhere else."

Jesse shrugged, and stooped over again to pick the ripe fruits from the bushes. He tried to focus on the work, the task at hand, but it was all so mindless, he couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting back…to Treegap…picking wild raspberries with Winnie and eating them by the creek. Running home to Mae with their pockets overflowing with them, their clothes stained in bright purple splotches where some of the berries had burst in the journey…waiting for the pie Mae baked out of them to be finished cooling.

That pie had tasted like paradise.

Jesse shook his head. _Get out, get out, get out!_ Memories were too painful; he couldn't afford the luxury of them. Not here. Not now.

Tuck, Mae, and Miles thought that this was a good way to keep Jesse preoccupied, but Jesse knew better. Physical labor wasn't the answer. He never got too drained to think, unlike his father and brother. He was running in the pits of exhaustion, because while his body would grow weary, his mind never ceased dwelling on thoughts of her – always her – long enough for him to fall asleep.

And when he did sleep, there was no rest in it. She haunted his every dream like she haunted his every waking thought. He couldn't help but wonder if she was as haunted by him as he was by her; if she was happy; if Alex loved her even a fraction as much as he did…

Even his guilt over hurting Catrin couldn't compare – and that haunted him, too. Catrin, crying at his abrupt severance of their relationship and subsequent departure. Catrin, so innocent despite her profession. Catrin, who had loved him without reserve, even though she knew he couldn't – or was it that he simply wouldn't? – love her back.

Jesse closed his eyes against the wave of guilt that washed over him.

_I have to get out of here; I need something to occupy my mind, not my hands. I can't keep living with these migrant farm workers, seeing their hopelessness everyday…_

That was the worst part. Seeing all the people who had been shuffled off their farms in short order, and sent on a mass exodus to California where they were mistreated and ripped off by people who weren't all that different from themselves. Even his family had suffered some, but not being Arkies or Okies, their humiliations had been relatively mild…

The degradation just forced him deeper into the darkness he was spinning about himself like some sort of drunken spider in a nightmare.

"Miles?" Jesse called suddenly.

"Mm?" Miles didn't even turn to look at him.

"I can't keep doing this, Miles. This farming stuff…I can't do it no more."

Miles paused then; turning to give Jesse a long, appraising stare.

"So what do you propose to do then, Jess?"

"Let's join the CCC, Miles. They're doing good things. Building schools, roads. It's paid employment, and we won't stay no place for too long, so Tuck will agree. I just can't do this anymore, Miles. There's too much time to think…"

Unsaid: "About what I lost." "About her." "About who I've hurt." "About what I've done."

Long pause. Miles had heard the unheard words as surely as if Jesse had screamed them at the top of his lungs for all the world to hear. Jesse felt the urge to fidget under Miles' laser-sharp gaze, but restrained himself.

For the first time in months, his mind was blissfully blank as he willed Miles to understand and agree.

"We'll see, Jess. Remind me tonight."

--

"Oh, no, Jess. What did you do?" The accusation in Miles' voice ripped through Jesse more violently than a gunshot.

Jesse shoved the envelope and scribbled letter under his pillow, and stood to face his brother in the small shack they shared with four other guys – mercifully empty at the moment, excepting the two of them.

"I didn't do anything."

"Jess, we don't know anyone enough for them to be sending you mail. We're untraceable. Who did you contact?"

"Nobody, Miles."

"Jesse, give me the envelope."

"Why, Miles? I've lived long enough that I can judge for myself what I can and can't do."

"Jess, in case you've forgotten, we can't ever be found out. The last thing we can afford is to slip up and reunite with people who should have long forgotten about us. Now who in hell were you writing to? Give me the damn envelope, before I have to take it myself."

Jesse stood his ground. Miles glared at him.

The door slammed open.

"Everything alright?" Daniel, one of their housemates asked. The electric tension between Jesse and Miles dissipated instantly. Whatever they had between them, they wouldn't let the others know.

"Yeah, fine."

"Good, because I'm going to bed. Night."

Daniel climbed into his bed, and Miles clicked off the light from the solitary lamp in the corner, giving Jesse a warning glance and muttering threats under his breath.

Jesse took a deep breath, and settled into his own bunk. He drifted off to sleep with the letter clamped tightly in his fists, and for once, he slept soundly, unhaunted and dreamless.

* * *

(Author's Final note: Yes, it's short – way shorter than it should be after my super-long hiatus of doom. I'm sorry. And no, I'm not telling you who the letter was from, what it was about, or anything else about it, other than that Jesse has it because he's keeping a post office box open secretly. Mwahahahaha. Yes, I'm hiding things. They're important to later, when you actually will find out. -grin-)


	12. Ch 11: Winnie

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. Again, sorry this took a while. Lest everyone forget, I'm a university student, and that means that most of my time is –not- going to be dedicated to writing this. Also, I had some unexpected computer calamities – my laptop completely crashed, the hard drive was wiped, and I lost all of the sections I'd been working and the outline, so I'm still trying to rebuild that (not to mention all of my original novels that got trashed in the process. I was ready to die) while dealing with the recent onset of carpal tunnel syndrome and sciatica. It's been rough. (Actually, it's been terrible. Something about the adage, "When it rains, it pours" comes to mind.)

Now. Moving on to the story. Hopefully I'll be able to scrap the next ones up from memory relatively soon, but at this point, I don't want to make any more promises that I'm not certain I can keep. Sorry. ;;

* * *

Christmas 1923 – October 27, 1933

"Excuse me, ma'am, your stop's coming up."

Winnie jolted awake at the light touch of the conductor's hand on her arm. Outside, the world was wreathed in pitch-blackness, pierced only occasionally by dim lamps struggling to illuminate even a scrap of ground. She blinked and yawned, stretching the stiffness out of her shoulders and arms.

_Odd, to only be 24 and feeling so old_, Winnie mused as she gathered her belongings. They weren't much, only what she'd managed to accumulate in the two months since she'd fled her abusive, alcoholic husband. _I hope Mae's alright without me…_the cold hand of a guilty conscience clawed at her heart, ripped her apart with the thought of her little daughter living with her husband alone, but not even her motherly instinct could drive her home.

Not yet, at least.

"Watch your step, ma'am," the conductor said, offering a hand to her as she stepped down from the train step. She shivered slightly in the cold desert air, but it was vastly warmer in Arizona than she would have expected any place could be in wintertime.

In the distance, a group of children sang carols gleefully. A full moon rose overhead, coldly beautiful in the frigid air, and somewhere in the distance a coyote howled his mournful counterpoint to the children's songs.

Winnie gathered her bag and set off in a random direction, hoping to find someplace to settle in for the evening before it grew too late. Already she was beginning to feel uncomfortable alone on the station platform.

"Spare some change, ma'am?"

"Hello there, pretty lady."

"Looking for someone to spend the night with, love?"

From all sides, unwanted attention was being showered on her, and for the first time in a long time, Winnie didn't know how to react. Leaving her husband had been an impulsive decision, true, but one she had rehearsed repeatedly in her head. Getting out of the woods in Treegap and onto a train had taken more effort, but she had found the courage after discovering that there was nothing left of the Tucks to be found in the cottage. Not even fingerprints gone silvery with accumulating dust. Here, in Arizona, there was no familiarity. Nothing that she could rely on.

For the first time in years, Winnie was afraid.

She nearly leapt out of her skin with panic when she felt someone's hand on her shoulder, and she turned to see a surprisingly sturdy, petite old woman.

"You're lost." It wasn't a question. "I can help you."

"I don't know you. You must have mistaken me for someone else."

"No. You're the one I'm looking for."

Panic gripped Winnie's heart in a vise-grip. "Alex sent you? He knows where I am?" Her voice was a shrill whisper despite her best efforts to keep it otherwise.

"Forget the man. I'm here to help _you._"

Forcing herself to breathe slowly and evenly, Winnie studied the old woman. She was clearly Native American, with a stern, proud, face that was beautiful despite – or perhaps because of – the webbing of fine lines stretching across her leathery skin, brown from years in the desert sun. She wore her iron-and-steel colored hair in a tightly braided bun at the back of her head, but several long strands had escaped to frame her face. Milky cataracts covered the old woman's eyes, and Winnie realized that she was blind. Her clothing was simple and dark, unremarkable in every way, yet her bearing and posture made her impossible to overlook.

"What's your name?" Winnie asked finally, unsure of how much to trust the woman, but not knowing what else she could do.

"You can call me Grandmother," the old woman said with a smile, reaching up to lay one of her fragile hands on Winnie's cheek. Her skin smelled like sunshine and thunderstorms, Winnie thought. "You've had a rough journey, granddaughter, so let's get out of here. In the morning, in the sunlight, I'll explain everything."

Winnie wasn't sure how long she had stayed with Grandmother; the days seemed to bleed into one another in an endlessly repeating, comfortable cycle of days spent in simple tasks. Grandmother needed someone to help run her store, selling blankets, furniture, and decorative trinkets made on the Indian reservation to tourists passing through, and so during the days Winnie manned the shop. At night, they ate dinner together, and Grandmother told her stories that had been in the tribe since before the discovery of the Americas by Columbus.

But Winnie still didn't know what Grandmother had meant when she said that she'd explain everything. Indeed, explanations had been rather lacking.

"That'll be one dollar, please," Winnie said to her last customer of the day, ringing up the purchase quickly before closing the store windows and locking the front door. She hummed aimlessly to herself as she swept the floors and straightened the displays.

"You're singing," Grandmother said, her voice warm with approval, as she came into the shop from the little room above the store where she spent her afternoons in case Winnie should need her. "You're finally happy again."

Winnie smiled to herself as she realized that what Grandmother had observed was, in fact, true.

"It's been a good day."

It had, but that wasn't why Winnie was singing. She didn't really know why she was, except there was something in the air that reminded her of better days. Maybe it had been the shopper who wore the same perfume as Mae, or the two rambunctious boys who were so like Jesse and Miles, but it had been a day for good memories, and those had put Winnie in a good mood.

"Good."

Grandmother moved absently about the room, putting everything into its right place despite not being able to see.

"How do you do that?" Winnie hadn't realized she'd spoken until Grandmother answered.

"My eyes would only hinder my seeing."

"What?"

"There are things I should explain to you, granddaughter. The time's come for it. You've healed from your previous wounds, and it's time for you to take the next step."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then come with me."

Hesitating, Winnie followed Grandmother into the room above the shop. Through the open window, she could see the sun setting in a brilliant blaze of crimson and amethyst, molten gold clouds streaking across the bands of color. In front of the window, a traditional loom was set up, and on it a half-finished blanket with intricately worked geometric designs.

"Sit." Winnie did as directed. "You've been here for several months now, and it's time we talked. When you came here, you were running."

"My husband was abusive. He attacked me one night in a drunken stupor. I wasn't about to stay there," Winnie answered stubbornly.

Grandmother laughed, a sound like bells chiming, and picked up the shuttle. "I know what you were running _from._ I want to know if you know what you were running _to._"

For a long moment, there was only the sound of the shuttle as Grandmother passed it back and forth along the loom, continuing the graceful spiderwebbing pattern that reminded Winnie of snowflakes falling on autumn leaves.

"I wasn't running to anything."

"Weren't you?"

Winnie squirmed uncomfortably. Even blind, Grandmother could see right through her in a way no one had ever been able to in the past.

"Just memories. Memories that have no bearing on the present. I deluded myself. I'm over that now."

"Are you? Or is that just what you think?"

"You don't even know what those memories were!"

"I don't have to, granddaughter." Grandmother turned her back to Winnie, and rummaged about in a drawer beside the loom. When she turned around, she had a strange deerskin pouch in her hand.

"What is that?"

"Open and see."

Slowly, Winnie drew the string, and the pouch fell open to reveal a small crystal bottle filled with a clear liquid. Winnie recognized it. She couldn't not.

"How did you get this?"

"You left it on your table while I was cleaning. I found it, and took it so you couldn't make a rash decision and end your life."

"This isn't poison."

"No, it's more effective than that. Nothing stops a person from living faster than living forever."

The rebuttal died on Winnie's lips in shock.

"Yes, I know about the water in that bottle, Winnie. Don't be so surprised."

"You know my name!"

"I know a lot more than that."

"_How?_"

"My tribe was originally from the woods near Treegap. Our legends tell of the spring. It didn't take much to figure it out. I found the spring, just before my tribe was relocated here."

"That was back during Jackson's presidency. The Trail of Tears…you couldn't possibly have walked that."

"You know what the water does, Winnie. Is it so hard to believe?"

"But why would you do that to yourself if you knew what would happen?"

"Because the legend came with a prophecy and a command. The prophecy, that only after the spring has stopped flowing will our tribe die out, and the command, that someone from our tribe must always live, to guard the spring from those who would drink from it intentionally, and to save those who drink from it accidentally."

"That's why you took the bottle. So why are you giving it back to me?"

"Because it's not a decision I can make for you. I was going to break it. But that would rob you of the only chance at life that you have left."

"I've already lost my chances at life."

"You make the mistake of thinking that your experiences are your life. Life is an experiment, an adventure. Each must have the freedom to choose from the messy buffet it offers according to their own will. Your friends didn't have that choice, for they drank in ignorance."

"You know about the Tucks? Of course you know about them, you know about me," Winnie laughed shrilly, feeling a bit hysterical.

"Do you want to help them, Winnie?"

"There's no way to help them. They're trapped, as effectively as I am."

"Only to your knowledge. I said that part of the command was to save those who drink from the spring accidentally, didn't I?"

Winnie froze, her hysterical laughter dying instantly on her lips.

"There's a cure, Winnie. A way to revoke the magic placed on them when the water first passed their lips. But I'm old, and tired. Soon I'll revoke the magic keeping me here and let someone else take my place as Shaman and Medicine Woman of my tribe. My sister's great-granddaughter is shaping up to be the perfect replacement. But first I have to see to it that the last known recipients of the water's blessing and curse are able to restore themselves."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"You know them. You love them. You'll find them again, one day, if you can bring yourself to wait through the years of loneliness. It could take centuries for them to find me…but you can bring them this hope. If you're willing to endure it."

"What do I have to do?"

"Don't rush the decision, child! The years are long yet, even with the promise of hope at the end."

Winnie laughed, the sound harsh and manic to her ears. "What do you want me to say?"

"What I want isn't what matters. What do you want to do?"

"I want to help the Tucks. They're the only people who have ever really loved me for me. The only ones who truly know me and haven't tried to change me to fit some mold or standard because they know it would suffocate me."

"And what about the suffocation of watching your entire world move past you? Will you be able to tolerate watching your child grow up, grow old, possibly pass on while you remain as you are? Trapped in the body of a young woman – and a well-known and recognizable woman of society at that, having to live in hiding and let the world pass you by? Alone, possibly for centuries?"

Winnie swallowed hard, watching as Grandmother put the shuttle down and picked up the beater to force the threads into more compact arrangement. Her heart was thundering in her chest as though she had run a marathon uphill in a thunderstorm.

"I don't know," she admitted weakly.

Grandmother turned her milky white eyes toward Winnie, and gave her a more piercing stare than any sighted person ever had. Slowly, a proud smile stretched across her lips, transforming her expression into one of triumph.

"Good."

Winnie had boarded the train back east with a heavy heart, and disembarked from it laden with anxieties turned to granite and marble, so heavily did they weigh on her. As she stood on the platform, a river of bustling, murmuring humanity sweeping past her, she scanned the crowd for any sight of a familiar face. None popped out of the crowd. She sighed.

"Winifred!" Winnie spun around to locate the source of the voice calling her name. She wasn't sure if she was more delighted or apprehensive about seeing her mother again.

"Oh, Winifred!" Mrs. Foster murmured, her voice thick with repressed emotion as she pulled her daughter into a ferocious embrace. "I thought I'd lost you."

Winnie returned the hug with sincere warmth and affection.

"You almost did."

"What in heaven's name brought you back after so many months? It's been almost a year, we'd just about given you up for dead."

Winnie sighed. "There were a few understandings I had to reach before I could come back and meet my responsibilities."

Mrs. Foster was clearly taken aback. Complicated emotions warred in her expression.

"Winnie, I hate to be the one to tell you, but when you left…"

"What? Did something happen to Mae?" Sudden panic rose in her throat at the thought of harm coming to her little girl. She had never meant to abandon her – it had been Mae who drew her back, ultimately.

"Mae's fine. But Winnie, Alex completely fell apart. And then the stock market crashed and he lost everything. You've chosen a fine time to return, with everything in more chaos than when you left." The two women shared a knowing look – Winnie had told her mother about all of the abuses she had endured before her flight from Treegap, so there was no love lost between either of the women and Alex.

"And my return will cause a proper scandal, naturally."

"How could you expect otherwise? A married woman, with a child, up and disappears for over a year – it's unheard of. And what with this economic downturn, men leaving their families when they can't provide for them – people are just looking for anything unusual to seize upon to distract themselves from their own misfortunes."

Winnie shook her head and said nothing. She had known that this wouldn't be easy. The memory of her farewell from Grandmother in Arizona had seen to that.

"_You took a risk coming out here, my girl. You're taking a bigger one going back. It's ultimately for the good, I believe, but you will question that before the end of this comes," Grandmother said gently, tucking a blowaway strand of Winnie's hair back affectionately. "Just know that you are always welcome to come back to see me, should you need me for anything."_

"_Thank you, Grandmother. But what about this cure for the spring water?"_

"_So persistent," the old woman chuckled, fumbling with a small pouch. From it she withdrew a small vial. The opalescent liquid caught the light and shimmered with an eldritch quality for a moment, before Grandmother pressed the bottle into Winnie's hand. "There's enough for five people, and five people only. Yourself, and the four in the family you're hunting for. When the time comes, mix this with five cups of plain water - or wine if you prefer – and then add the herbs from this packet," she handed Winnie a small paper envelope, "and five drops of water from the spring. Let it steep from new moon to new moon. At the end of that time, it will be prepared, and you have only to drink it to reverse the magic."_

The memory rose up, unbidden, reminding her why she had agreed to return. It wasn't just about herself anymore.

"You can't honestly mean that you don't care, Winnie?"

"No, Mother. I do. But in the end, how much will it really matter? Take me home, I want to see my Mae."

"Hi there, sweetie," Winnie murmured, picking up the 4 year old child. "I missed you terribly."

"Who are you?" Mae asked, confusion plain in her expression. It hit Winnie like a knife.

"I'm your mama, Mae," Winnie said quietly. The little girl looked to Mrs. Foster, standing in the doorway.

"She is, Mae, darling."

Mae tilted her head slightly, examining Winnie for a moment, and then hesitantly reached out to hug her. Winnie pressed her daughter close, tears streaming down her face.

_What have I done?_

"What brings you back?" Alex asked coldly, as Winnie came into his office.

"Our daughter."

Alex snorted. "And what gave you the audacity to think that I'd let my daughter near a whore like you?"

Winnie's back stiffened, and she measured her words out carefully. "I won't deign to respond to that, Alex. I've been faithful to you, as I promised. I will continue to do so, as I promised. Don't let our daughter suffer because you and I have difficulties between ourselves."

"You disappeared for a year. Elizabeth has forgotten about you. Indeed, she's much better off now."

"How can you say that? She needs a mother, Alex."

"Yes, and you've been such a fantastic one, Winnie. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't divorce you and throw you out of my house right now?"

Winnie swallowed hard. "Because you can't afford to."

Winnie woke to the sound of a gunshot ringing through the air.

She threw back her covers and raced down the hallway in her nightgown, and nearly collided into her daughter.

"Mama, what happened?" the now-10 Mae asked in a shaking voice.

"I don't know, sweetie. Stay here, I'll go see how your father's doing."

Winnie approached the door to the office hesitantly. Taking a moment to steel herself against whatever she might find, she opened it, expecting to hear Alex snap at her to go away any moment.

Instead, she shrieked. The maid came running.

"Mrs. Jackson, what is it? Oh dear Lord!"

The two women stood in stunned silence, looking at the catastrophe in the office. Alex lay prone on the carpet, blood pooling around him. A hideous gaping hole occupied much of what had been his once-handsome face, but he was still breathing raggedly, somehow horribly alive. The shot, intended to be fatal, had missed its intended target.

"Alex!" Winnie finally managed to scream out, and knelt by his side, sobbing hysterically. "Why did you do this to yourself?"

"Not like. You love. Me anyway." His breath came in ragged gasps as his life drained away along with his blood. "Take care. Of Mae. She needs. You. I know that. You'll survive. You were. Always. A fighter. Winnie."

"Alex, Alex, why?" Winnie cried, as he took a final shuddering breath and lay still.

Unnoticed, the newspaper headline proclaiming the stock market crash in which they had just lost everything silently provided the answer.

"Happy birthday, Mae," Winnie said brightly, giving her 13 year old daughter a small, brightly wrapped box. "It isn't much, but I hope you like it."

The Depression had hit them hard, but they'd been able to survive thus far by moving in with Mrs. Foster and selling their lush house in Clearwater and all it contained. The gift was more than they could afford, but Winnie was determined that her daughter not be deprived by the economic destruction running rampant around them.

"Thank you, mother," Mae said soberly, unwrapping it carefully. Inside was a new golden locket, with a picture of the girl's father carefully centered in one half of the heart. Since his death nearly three years prior, Mae had become terribly withdrawn. Winnie knew she missed him deeply, and often wondered what would have happened to them if he had lived.

A sad smile crept across Mae's lips, and she put the locket on around her neck without a word. A long moment later, she broke the silence.

"There's no picture of you in it."

"You know what I look like. Besides, I don't have any pictures that I really like that much."

"You don't have any pictures."

It was true. Winnie had destroyed them all upon her return to Clearwater years earlier.

"That's because I didn't like them."

"Mrs. Watson next door says it's because you haven't aged a day since you came home."

"Mrs. Watson next door is a busybody who should mind her own business," Winnie snapped, harsher than she had intended. "My appearance is nobody's business but my own."

"Mama?"

"Yes?"

"Why haven't you remarried? You and Papa didn't love each other, I know that. So why are we still living with Grandmama?"

Winnie shook her head. "Does Mrs. Watson think I should have remarried by now, too?"

"No, I was just wondering."

"I haven't remarried because I don't wish to." _I can't afford anyone being so close to me as to be able to see that I've remained unchanging throughout the passage of time. And if Mrs. Watson is noticing…I need to get better with my cosmetic illusions._

"Oh."

"This isn't a very nice conversation. What do you want to do for your birthday, Mae?"

Mae shrugged. Winnie sighed. _Will things never be right between us?_

The doorbell rang.

"Yes?" Winnie asked when the courier didn't say anything.

"I have a telegram here, for Mrs. Jackson?"

"I am she. What does it say?"

"_My deepest sympathies on the passing of Mr. Jackson. I have only recent learned of his death, and it grieves me deeply. We fought together during the Great War and I owe him my life. If I can be of any assistance to you, please inform me immediately. _It's signed Jonathan Smith."

Winnie's heart froze. _Can it really be Jesse? _"What's the location of the sender?"

"Rochester, New York, Ma'am."

"Thank you very much. Send a return message for me, please, instructing him to come visit me at his leisure. I would very much like to meet this friend of my husband's."

A knock came at the door, and Winnie hurried down to answer it, her heart thudding. Jonathan Smith was due to visit this afternoon, and she was hoping against hope that it would truly be Jesse.

"Yes?" she asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she opened the door to a tall, dark-haired man with tired eyes.

"Winifred Jackson? I'm Jonathan Smith."

Winnie couldn't place where she had seen the strange man before, and hoped that this hadn't been ill-advised.

"Yes. Come in."

Winnie closed the door carefully behind him as he entered, but she was really closing the door on the past.

* * *

Final note: Mr. Smith will be important, this wasn't just a red herring being tossed out to tease you because of the letter Jesse had earlier. Again, I apologize for the long delay I've had in putting this up, but carpal tunnel and sciatica have made my life excruciatingly painful – especially when sitting at a computer. I hope you enjoyed this section, though, and I'll hopefully post again soon. Please be patient with me, however, since I can make no guarantees about timing due to my failing physical health. I will repeat my promise to finish this story, however, since I hate leaving things uncompleted. Thanks. Best wishes to you all, and I'll be back again eventually. (Hopefully soon. )


	13. Ch 12: Days That Will Live in Infamy

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes.

I'M BACK! Third year of university is hard, just as a heads-up for those of you who aren't in university yet, or are but aren't at the end of your degree programs. And because I'm a sucker for pain, apparently, I decided to do my third year abroad. So I'm in Europe. It's amazing. I went to the Eiffel Tower – you can't take stairs all the way to the top anymore, at least not the day I was there, or I'd have counted them to confirm/disprove the famed Jesse and Winnie tally of 1,652. But whatever. It was still incredibly impressive.

I finally managed to catch up most of the things that I lost in the destruction of my laptop, including completely rewriting the outline for this story. So now *hopefully* I'll be able to keep these coming more frequently. Thanks for being patient. ^^

As always, historical details are about as accurate as my AP European History, AP US History, AP Government and Economics classes (which I took between 5 and 3 years ago) were, with some Wikipedia thrown in for good measure and fine-detail checking. So hopefully not *egregiously* incorrect, but still of questionable veracity. ^^;

* * *

April 20, 1935 – December 13, 1947

The small box was filled with newspaper clippings and brief notes scrawled in a delicate hand. Much to his annoyance, however, Miles couldn't understand what any of them said – part from illegibility, and part from a growing suspicion that, whatever language they were scribbled in, it wasn't English. Which could only mean one thing.

"What in hell are you doing, Miles!" Jesse shouted, coming into the room.

"Making sure as you aren't going to get us caught. Who have you been writing to?"

"Nobody!"

Miles brandished the stack of papers. "Fat lot of nobody!"

"You don't understand, Miles. I haven't contacted anyone what would know us."

"And I'm supposed to believe that these all appeared out of nowhere!"

"You're not even supposed to be going through my things."

"If we could trust you not to blow our cover, you might be allowed some privacy. But, Jesse, might I remind you that our secret has been blown once because of you, and we can't have it happening again!"

"Oh, that's rich of you, Miles! Winnie kept our secret! She was willing to stay with us, even when we had to flee to keep from being pursued! You're just bitter because the one person I ever told handled it so much better than your precious wife!"

Silence fell upon the room like a cracking whip. Miles threw the box of letters at Jesse and stormed out of the room, leaving Jesse gaping for a long moment in search of appropriate words.

_The more time goes by, the less able he and I are to live civilly together. But I'll never convince him and Tuck to trust me to keep my head if I keep flying off like this! _Jesse groaned, and followed Miles out of the room.

"Miles, look…I'm sorry, okay…"

"Just tell me who you've been contacting, Jesse." Miles' voice was ragged, and he refused to look at him. The guilt was suffocating.

"I requested that any news items about some 'long lost, distant relatives' be sent to a post office box down the road. I made sure to do things through three proxies, using fake names, so it's as close to untraceable as we can get. I just…I need to know that the things we – I – have left behind are being taken care of."

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"I've requested information about the first cousin of Winnie's husband. Not her, and not her husband, so there's no reason for people to find it suspicious. I assumed – rightly, apparently – that they would send along information of the two of them as well. And I have some information about Catrin, as well, but only that she returned to her home in Dresden."

"There's more you're not telling me."

Jesse stared resolutely at the floor. He couldn't bring himself to say the words. His insides were churning at the mere thought.

"Jesse."

_The easier bit first. Maybe that will be enough. Ha! "Easier"…like any of this pain is easier to know about. …the bit I'm not responsible for, then._

"Winnie ran away. Vanished for a year. She came back, though. When the market crashed, her husband lost everything and he shot himself. She and her daughter had to move back with her mother in order to make ends meet in both households. Her father died while she was away."

"And? Tell me everything, Jess."

_Please don't make me do this. I'm so ashamed._

"And…Catrin, she… She had a child." His voice dropped to a whisper. "A little girl. She named her Christa."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse could see Miles raise his head to look at him. But he couldn't bring himself to look back. His cheeks were burning with shame. He had never admitted to Miles just how far things had gone, although Miles would have had to be extremely naïve not to guess. Still…the guilt and the shame were almost more than Jesse could bear.

"Yours?"

"I can only imagine. It was seven months after we left Germany, and she had been feeling ill for the last few weeks I was with her. The timescale fits and… God, Miles, what did I do to her? How could I leave her like that?"

"If you want absolution…you'll have to look somewhere else, Jess. But in all fairness," he added gruffly, "you didn't know. And she was a prostitute, so chances are it's not even yours. Even if it was, what could you have done? Stayed to raise it? We don't have the luxury of taking responsibility," He shrugged, bitterness etched into his body language as clear as day, and walked toward the door.

"But she didn't sell herself while I was with her," Jesse whispered, burying his face in his hands as guilt and shame overwhelmed him.

Miles didn't hear him. He had already left the room.

_My secret shame. My burden to bear. I should have known he wouldn't sympathize or care._

--

"What are you pining about now, Jesse?"

"I'm not _pining_, Miles. I'm just thinking."

"Yeah, well think later. We've got to get to work."

"…Do you think Europe's going to go to war again, Miles?"

Miles paused for a long moment. "I don't know, Jess. I really don't. But mark my words – if they do, we're staying out of it."

"You really think we could do that, Miles?"

"The Neutrality Act…"

"Miles."

"I don't know. Most of this country is so damn isolationist, they couldn't care less if Europe packs up and moves to hell, so long as it doesn't affect them. But the world's gone mad, Jess. And if that madness spreads…we could be back on the battlefield sooner than anyone would ever guess. And I, for one, tremble at the thought of what mechanized death they'll be able to unleash _this_ time. I've seen enough death for ten men. And you…" he trailed off. Both of them were acutely aware of how shaken Jesse had been and still remained in the wake of the Great War. It had taken years, but Jesse had only just finally quit drinking himself to sleep every night. Neither of them was in any rush to return to that particular battle – and nothing could send them there faster than being sent off to battle.

"That's what I was afraid of," Jesse muttered, fumbling around in a drawer in search of a pair of socks. A piece of paper fluttered out of it, and before he could stop him, Miles' hand had swooped down upon it and scooped it up. He examined it a moment, scowling, while Jesse tried to think of some sort of an explanation.

"Jesse," Miles said sternly.

"It's just a photograph. Nobody will ever know who she…_they_ are. I just…I feel bad for what I did to her. As long as I never forget…." He searched for the words, but none were coming. He settled for, "It's like penance…"

There was no way he could explain to Miles how he felt about carrying this single memento of his past. What he had done to Catrin was inexcusable. If he forgot her, it would be the final indignity. If he did that, he could never forgive himself.

_And when you live forever, never forgiving yourself is a bitter pill to swallow._

"Regardless of that, Jess, you can't ever make it up to her. Forget about this girl. She'll be lucky to still be alive, the way Germany's going. And even if she does live through the coming storm – she can't ever see you again."

Jesse snatched the photograph out of Miles' hand. "I didn't expect that you would understand," he muttered under his breath, "what it feels like to abandon someone."

"Perhaps not," Miles grunted, "but close enough to it."

A stab of guilt pierced through Jesse's heart, and he grasped for words to apologize. But Miles had already left the room. Sighing, he shook his head and ripped the photograph of Catrin in two. The pieces dropped out of his hand and fluttered to the floor. The half with her face on it facedown, the half with the baby girl landing on its side and teetering for a moment before falling face up.

"What's past is past, and I can never go back," he said, but hearing it said out loud in his own voice didn't do anything to convince him.

He left the pieces of the photo on the floor as he turned and walked morosely out of the room.

--

"Germany invades Poland! England and France declare war! Full story here! Hot off the presses!" The shouts of boys hawking newspapers filled the street as Jesse trudged through the stubborn drizzle heading for the coffee shop where he was due to meet Miles.

"Watch where you're going!" a man snarled at him as he stepped out into traffic without looking. What did it matter if he got hit by a car? Not like it could hurt him much after all. Jesse merely shrugged and kept going, his thoughts haunted by thoughts of Germany and the lives he had left in ruins behind him there.

_Germany's almost as haunting as Treegap now. Only difference is, you hear about it more often so it hurts more. Funny. You'd think overexposure would make it hurt less._

"Jess." Jesse jumped as Miles' hand clamped down onto his shoulder.

"Jesus, Miles! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry Jess. I got a telegram from Tuck. He and Mae are on the move. We need to go somewhere else, too."

"What ain't you telling me, Miles?"

Miles sighed. "Tuck figures it's only a matter of time before the States join this war. Isolationist policies or no, the mess in Europe is only going to get worse. Mark my words, Jess, by the end of next year, if we aren't looking for an excuse to join the conflict, we will be by the end of the year after it."

"You really think so?"

"Don't you? We've both lived long enough to see it happen several times over. Every time we start off saying it won't come to America. Every time America goes. Learn the lesson, Jess. It's time to enlist again."

Jesse felt as though his internal organs had liquefied and begun to slush around inside his belly.

"No."

"Jesse."

"Miles, I _can't_. It nearly destroyed me. You. Us. Everything. We're never going to escape those memories. I can't live with an eternity of knowing that I…" his voice caught. Overpowering emotions were surging through him, chasing clarity and rationality away. He turned a pleading gaze on his older brother, hoping that Miles could see the confusion and pain raging inside of him at even the memories he already held. "Haven't we seen enough death?" he asked plaintively, sounding like a little boy.

"I talked to Tuck about it, and he agrees. If we enlist, we can choose the service we go into. If we go into this new Air Force, fly the planes, we won't be in the trenches. We won't go into battle on foot. We'll be removed from it. Safe. Safer, at least."

"And bringing mechanized death on the masses. I've had enough of this, Miles! I can't kill more people."

"Keep your voice down!" Miles hissed, lowering his own voice to an agitated whisper. "Listen to me, Jesse. If the draft comes – and it will, you mark me – then you won't get no choice of where you end up. You won't. None at all. We've both seen it. We both know it. But if we enlist. First choice. Now I don't know about you, but I'd much rather not have to see firsthand the horror of war again. And if you're hundreds of feet in the air, you won't. I've got enlistment papers here. You just have to sign."

"Miles…"

Miles gave him a long, steady stare. "Trust me Jesse. I'm your big brother. I wouldn't lead you astray."

_Wouldn't you? Haven't you already? Winnie, Catrin, Christa, my baby girl, I'm so sorry._

Jesse swallowed hard and signed the form. And then he stood and left the coffee shop without looking back. Miles didn't even stir from his chair.

A storm was rising, unlike anything they had ever begun to imagine. And nobody could guess how much it would engulf the world. But Jesse had a clue.

_They thought the Great War was bad. The "war to end all wars." They really had no idea, did they? This is going to make that look like a child's game. And I'm going to help them. _

He wasn't watching where he was going, his mind was too consumed. When he found himself reading the headlines on newspapers about Germany's invasion of Poland and the ensuing actions being taken by other European nations, he shook himself.

_We're going to ally with England and France. Good god. More civilians die in these things than soldiers. I'm going to be fighting against the country my daughter and her mother live in. _

The realization hit him with such force that he felt as thought he couldn't breathe. He felt like he was choking on panic and bile. It didn't go unnoticed by those around him. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look.

"I know, it's terrible," the boy selling the papers said. "But we're going to show them! Just you wait and see!"

"You have no idea," Jesse said quietly, handing the boy a coin and taking a paper. "You really can't even begin to imagine."

--

"I told you this was a good idea," Miles said, stretching in the sunshine. "Early December and the sun's shining, it's warm out, and there are beautiful girls everywhere. I love Oahu. Hawaii is paradise on Earth."

"It's alright," Jesse answered glumly, flipping through the newspaper. The storm over Europe had finally broken, killing many and inflicting hideous wounds on so many more. "God, how many people have to die before this all ends?!"

Miles snatched the paper out of Jesse's hands. "Don't read that. You're just making it worse for yourself."

"I can't not know, Miles."

"You can't let yourself care so much, either. It's eating you up."

"Like you'd be doing so much better if our places were switched," Jesse snarled.

Miles merely raised an eyebrow at him. Jesse got up and walked into town. He couldn't handle Miles anymore.

_Shame I can't get more than a few miles away from him on this island_, he thought bitterly. _After more than a century, being on the same continent as him would try the patience of a saint._

"Robert!" a familiar voice shouted the latest of his ever-changing aliases. Jesse sighed and turned around.

"Richard, how are you?"

"Fantastic. Ella and some of her friends are going dancing tonight – a couple of them need dates. Care to come for a party?"

"You're still flirting with the nurses then?"

"Robert, look around. We're young. We're in paradise. The drinks are good and the girls are beautiful. What's not to love? The war's a million miles away, but if it were to hit us tomorrow, you wouldn't want to risk death knowing that you hadn't really lived, would you?"

Jesse envied this young man his carefree attitude toward life. It was easy to view the world that way, though, he supposed, when you were young and had never seen the worst that humanity was capable of and still thought yourself invincible against the worst of it.

"Sure, I'll join you," he said slowly.

"Fantastic! Just."

"Hm?"

"Leave James home for this one? He always manages to kill the mood."

"Believe me, he won't hear about this from me," Jesse said. _It'll be nice to lose Miles for an evening._

"Awesome! See you later then."

"Yeah. Later."

Jesse headed back to the base to get some work done before meeting up with the others. Miles was conspicuously absent, for which Jesse was profoundly grateful. He didn't need another earful about not getting too close to people.

If he had to fight alongside these men and possibly watch them die, he wanted to at least know who they were so that their memories could continue to live on. He felt that he owed them that much.

The dance hall was expansive and packed to the max. A quick round of introductions at the front door revealed that neither of the beautiful blondes hanging onto Richard's arms were Ella – she was due to meet them later. A shy, quiet redhead named Betty lurked toward the back of the group of girls, and Jesse gravitated toward her. He had never been much of one for the showy girls with no personalities who merely carbon-copied themselves into replicas of the latest sex symbols. That's why he had loved Winnie, with her fierce independent streak. Or Catrin, with her exceeding innocence and uniquely hopeful-yet-melancholy outlook. Betty, at least, would be fun to talk to.

_If I could just get her to talk._

But she could dance, and so that's what they did, jitterbugging away through the night until they were sweaty and exhausted, high on youth and freedom in the tropical evening.

"Let's go get some fresh air," Jesse suggested, tugging at the collar of his uniform. Betty nodded and took his arm.

The heavy, sweet smell of plumeria flowers filled the night, blending with the slightly tangy smell of pineapples and the salt of the ocean. Jesse couldn't remember ever smelling anything so wonderful. A light breeze danced through the palm fronds overhead, and the stars sparkled. If he had been after romance, he couldn't imagine a better scene for seduction. But really, he just wanted to relax and chase away the memories that plagued him.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"You wouldn't have heard of it," Betty said quietly. "It's a sleepy little town on the edge of a wood called Treegap. In Ohio. Have you heard of it?" she asked suddenly, and Jesse realized that something of his astonishment must have shown on his face.

"My…um. My father. Served with a man from Clearwater in the Great War."

"Oh, really? Most of my family lives there. We did when I was small, even."

Jesse felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. Betty couldn't be Winnie's daughter, could she? He didn't know the girl's name, but she'd be about 21 now, wouldn't she? How old was Betty? Somewhere between 18 and 22, judging by appearance, but that was a wide window and he had no polite way of narrowing it down.

"Wow. Small world," Jesse laughed nervously.

"Yeah. What was the name of the man your father served with? Perhaps I know him! Wouldn't that be just amazing?"

"Yeah. Amazing. But I don't know his name." _Alexander-bloody-Jackson. How could I ever forget?_ "It never occurred to me to remember it."

"Too bad," Betty said softly, lapsing back into silence. "Do you think we'll go to war?" she asked suddenly.

"I don't know," Jesse said honestly. "I don't think anyone really does."

Betty shrugged. "My brother's in the Navy, but he's not stationed here." Relief left Jesse feeling lightheaded. _If she has a brother, she can't possibly be Winnie's daughter._ "I'm scared that something will happen to him. I mean. As a nurse, I'm mostly safe. But he…he could be sent to the front lines."

Jesse didn't know what to say. Worry overcast Betty's delicate features.

"In the end," he decided to say, "what's meant to happen will."

"You're right, Robert. I shouldn't worry about this. It's silly. I mean, on a night like this! Do you want to go back to the dance? We can if you want."

"Do you want to?"

"I'm too nervous with all those people around," she admitted with a laugh.

"Same, actually," Jesse said. He smiled at her. She smiled back at him, flushing faintly.

_No. Nononononononono. Do not lead this girl on, too. Haven't you left enough broken hearts behind you? Besides. If you break the pieces of your own anymore, you'll have to live without a heart for the rest of eternity. _Jesse shuddered. _God forbid._

"You alright, Robert?"

"Yeah. Just someone walking over my grave."

"Hm." Betty nodded. "Come on," she said suddenly, grabbing his arm, "I want to show you something."

They walked for what seemed live several hours up a twisting coastal path to the top of a small hill overlooking the coast. It was a secluded area, quiet and tranquil, and one of the most beautiful views Jesse had ever seen. Didn't quite compare to the top of his Eiffel Tower, whether with or without Winnie, but it was still breathtaking.

"I come up here whenever I need to think," Betty said quietly. "Nobody else comes here that I know of."

"It's lovely."

Betty sat against a pineapple palm, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath for a moment. Jesse debated with himself before sitting down next to her.

They sat there talking for a long time, and then finally drifted into a companionable silence. Betty rested her head against Jesse's shoulder, but it felt so platonic that he said nothing, and they slowly drifted into sleep.

He woke to an angry buzz in the air and sharp popping sounds somewhere in the distance.

"What?" he asked, disoriented at finding himself outside, with Betty still sleeping beside him. Gradually, recognition pierced through the sleep fog of his brain, and suddenly he wasn't drowsy anymore. "Betty, wake up! Something's happening! I hear explosions."

"What? Robert, what's going on?" she jolted awake much more quickly than he had. They were both up on their feet, running back towards the town and the base.

"I don't know, Betty, but it's bad." Jesse pulled up suddenly, seeing planes swooping down, dropping bombs at the warships docked in the harbor. Several were already up in flames. A couple had pulled out into the bay and were beginning to pick up steam, but the carnage that was already taking place was violently shocking to Jesse's sensibilities.

"Holy…" Betty breathed, stopping short beside him.

"There was no warning," Jesse said quietly.

"What does this mean?" Betty asked, gripping his arm.

"I daresay it means the States are at war. We have to get down there. We have to help the others."

"What can we do? We'll be in the line of fire if we head for the base!"

"I don't know. But we can't just stand here while people die, Betty. You're a nurse. They're going to need you. We need to get you to the hospital."

He grabbed her arm and they ran for the city center.

By the time they arrived, everything was chaos. The Japanese planes had finished their work in just about an hour and a half, sinking several warships, destroying planes, and shattering the idyllic peace that the island had formerly enjoyed. Jesse's mind was racing far too quickly to entirely process all that this meant.

The hospital was overflowing with people and the nurses were overstretched. Betty was in a panicked state by the time they arrived, yet she was well enough trained that she was able to automatically do as she was instructed. Jesse helped the nurses by carrying the bodies of his injured and dying fellow soldiers where he was instructed.

The screams echoed through the halls and burned themselves into his memory.

Jesse willed himself not to think about it, not to focus on it, not to let it register. There would be time enough for that later. But for now, people's lives were depending on him and these terrified nurses.

In the space of a few minutes, everyone on the island had aged an eternity. Jesse only wondered how many more eternities he could age before his soul gave out.

--

"We're being deployed," Miles said, handing Jesse the letter. Jesse took it almost mechanically. There was a weariness in his soul that nothing could change. He ripped it open and read the brief, realizing that if he had felt like a soulless automaton moments before, it was nothing compared to now. His eyes were stuck on two words.

"Firebomb" and "Dresden".

_Firebomb Dresden. No. No, I can't. Please, God, don't make me do this._

The writing didn't change.

The letter fell out of his hands. Jesse couldn't breathe. Miles bent and picked it up, read the deployment, and went white as cottage cheese.

"Jesus Christ Almighty," he muttered under his breath.

"I can't, Miles. Catrin…God. _Christa._"

"Well, what are you going to do otherwise, Jesse? You've been deployed. If you don't go…that's enough to get your ass hauled up before a tribunal. And if you try to help them, it won't be for going AWOL, it'll be for treason. And they won't take kindly to your reasons either way. We're at war, there's nothing to be done for it."

"Miles…" Jesse was trembling from head to toe. "I have to help them."

"I told you, Jesse, to forget about them. This is why. I didn't know it would come to this, but now that it has, you need to put it behind you. War is war. There's nothing to be done. You have your orders. You have to follow them."

But Jesse knew that Miles wasn't saying it to be cruel. The sadness and pathos in his voice made that clear. Miles really felt for him and for all the people who would die in the ordered attack – whether those people included his unknown niece and her German mother didn't matter. They had both seen enough death in wartime to not want that fate for any human being.

"Maybe I can get grounded. But that won't do anything for them…Miles, I have to do something! You have to understand! Miles, please, help me think of something."

"Jess…" Miles shook his head, his voice quavering. "There is nothing that you or I can do for them, except pray for their souls."

--

Jesse sighed, and sat up in the cramped room.

Tonight the raid was supposed to happen. The weather was hardly cooperating, though, and he wondered if it would carry on as planned. He paused to count the days again on his fingers. Had it really been that long since he had gone AWOL from his group in a half-demented attempt to save the lives of Catrin and Christa?

He still hadn't found them. By his best guess, he had until the sun set, and then it would be too late. He couldn't remember when the bombs were due to start dropping, but it would be after dark. He needed to get Catrin and Christa out of the city center by then.

If he could find them.

The refugee camp he was living in was overcrowded, but nobody ever really spoke to him. His accent was strange to most of them, but after years of living off and on in Germany, he could pass among them, each thinking he was German like them – just from another state. He couldn't rely on that for long, though. So far he had only managed to survive by studiously avoiding the Nazi officers around.

Slowly, he dressed for the harsh cold of the winter morning, layering on extra jackets so that when he threw back the thin blankets that kept the sharpest bite of cold off of him, it wouldn't shock him too badly. He needed to get into town while the checkpoints wouldn't take too long.

All he had to go off of were old comments of Catrin's, about her home. About the view she had from her loft room of the Frauenkirche, and the statues around city hall representing various virtues. She said that she often spent time at a coffee shop under the eye of the statue representing justice.

So few clues, so little time. Jesse hadn't yet found her. No matter how he knew he had tried, if he couldn't find her, he would never forgive himself.

Yet again, he headed for the city hall. Combing through the streets, examining the faces of every woman he passed, and even some who were clearly not in the right age range. He searched out every little girl of about twelve that he could possibly find, looking for any who could convincingly be the product of his liaison with Catrin.

He searched all day, growing despondent as his failures mounted higher. It had been twelve years, how could he be certain that he hadn't passed them in the road already?

_I'll never forget her face, though._ But it was still twelve years gone.

And then, on the steps of the Frauenkirche just after lunchtime, a woman so strikingly familiar leading a young girl so heartbreakingly similar to Mae herself that there was no room left for doubt in Jesse's heart.

"Catrin!" he shouted, running toward her. She startled, and looked around her, confusion plain in her features. "Catrin, Catrin, _es ist ich, Christoph!"_

He didn't dare call to her in English, for fear of bringing the Nazis swooping down upon them both.

"Christoph?" she mouthed, hope plain on her features, looking about her everywhere. Her eyes settled on him, and she ran forward to meet him, kissing him and stroking his face with one hand, staring into his eyes incredulously. "_Is it really you? I've missed you so terribly! And just look at you. You haven't aged a day!_"

"_That's not important now, Catrin. You have to listen to me. We have to leave Dresden."_

Her eyes narrowed.

"_Why?"_

"_There's a raid coming tonight. You can't be here when it happens. Trust me. Please."_

She shook her head and gave him a flat, level stare. _"That's it? Twelve years, and the first thing you have to say to me is that I have to trust you and leave the only home I've ever known? Why should I listen to you? Why, Christoph? Give me one good reason._"

Her words, deserved as they were, pierced through him like a knife.

"_Because I'm committing treason against my government to be here, so I can tell you to take Christa and get out of Dresden before it's too late._"

Catrin's face hardened. "_I'm sorry, Christoph. Dresden is my – _our_ – home. When you abandoned us, it cared for us. Frankly, your word just is not good enough._" She took Christa's hand and led the girl away.

"_Mama, who is he?_" Christa asked.

"_Someone I knew once, long ago,_" Catrin answered. "_It's not important._"

"_Why are you crying?_"

"_Because I never thought I'd see him again. But I hoped that if I did, it would be different. I was a stupid little girl. I should have known better."_

"_What do you want me to say, Catrin? That I came back because I love you? That I always have and that it was a terrible mistake for me to ever leave you and I've spent twelve years trying to get back to you and make it up to you?" _Jesse demanded, following her. _"I won't lie to you. I promised you I never would, and I meant it. I care for you. Deeply. But we knew when we began our relationship that I could never love you the way you wanted me to. But it was a terrible mistake to leave you. And I'm sorry for that. I should never have left you alone with a child that was half my responsibility. And when I knew, I should have come straight back. But life didn't work out that way, and now I'm here to try to make it as right as I can. If you stay here in Dresden," _he hissed, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him, "_then you will die. I risked my life to give you the chance at life. Yes, because I feel guilty. Yes, because I robbed you of your life once and if I can give you the second chance at life that you deserve, we can call it even and I can stop being haunted by my memories of you. But does the motive really change the effect that much? I can never love you that way Catrin, and I'm sorry that you've wasted one lifetime on me already. But please. Take what I'm offering. Come away with me."_

Catrin slapped him. "_Let go of me. How dare you? How dare you show up after twelve years and demand that I believe nothing but your word that I'm in danger in the only place that has ever sheltered me! How dare you vanish out of my life and reappear one day, expecting me to acquiesce to your whims? How dare you treat me like a child! I was a struggling girl when you met me Christoph, but I have survived these years on my own. I'm a woman now. I will not be told what to do by some asshole who used me and dumped me, leaving me alone to figure out how to raise a child and put the shattered fragments of my life back together all on my own. And I can't believe your nerve in honestly believing that I would still be pining after you all these years later. No, Christoph, you showed me long ago where I ranked in your priorities. And where Christa did. I don't know how you learned of her, but believe me when I say that she and I are both much better off without you. God help any other woman in your life as well."_

Jesse was flabbergasted. _What have I done to her? _Suddenly, all the years of guilt didn't seem nearly adequate for what he had caused. And, not for the first time, he cursed the spring that had given him immortality for directly giving rise to this situation.

"_Catrin, I'm sorry. Really. I can never tell you how sorry I am."_

"_Then show it by getting back out of my life and staying there."_

"_Mama?" _Christa said quietly. Catrin and Jesse both looked at her. That seemed too much for the girl, who fell silent and hugged her mother around the waist, looking up at Jesse curiously. But that break in the conversation was enough to break the dam that had been holding back Catrin's tears. She crumpled slightly, and Christa glared at Jesse as she fumbled a handkerchief out of a pocket and handed it to her mother. Catrin covered her face with it, ashamed to be seen crying in public, but unable to make herself stop.

"Oh, Catrin, _I'm so sorry. So very, very sorry,_" was all he said. He reached out to her and held her, on the steps of the Frauenkirche, while she sobbed for all the years of their lives that had vanished from them. People were beginning to stare, and it was making Jesse nervous, but he knew that he needed to give her time before she would be willing to listen to instructions from him. He had that much time to spare for her at least.

After all, she had spared years of her life for him.

Christa just watched them both in confusion, shivering slightly as the icy February wind cut through the thin layers of her clothing. That, more than anything else, caught Catrin's attention and made her struggle to calm herself. She was still trembling and sniffling, and tears were still dropping down her cheeks and freezing on the pavement when she finally told Jesse to follow her back to her home.

It was small, cramped, and freezing, but it kept the wind out. She lit a small fire in the gas heater and they huddled around it for warmth, waiting for the weak blaze to melt away the worst of the chill. Catrin sent Christa to her room with a mug of weak tea while she and Jesse spoke. She pouted a bit about it at first, evidently fascinated by this stranger who had so upset their lives this morning, but finally agreed and left the room.

"_She'll listen at the door, no doubt," _Jesse said with a smile.

"_Oh, I know. But this way there won't be any interruption from inconvenient questions while we're talking. There's so much I haven't told her." _Catrin sighed heavily. _"If it kills me, she'll have a better life than I did."_

Jesse took her hand, and she smiled faintly at him. "_Is she mine?" _he asked softly, after a long moment.

"_Who else's could she be?" _Catrin asked incredulously. "_You know perfectly well that I was only with you. And even if you doubt that, just look at her!"_

"_I know. I just…I needed to hear it, I think. Why didn't you tell me?"_

"_You left before I was certain. I suspected, but… Besides, if you didn't want to stay for me, I could hardly expect you to stay for her when you'd never wanted her either."_

That stung.

"_I'm sorry."_

"_No matter. It's not like we can change all that's happened."_

"_No, indeed."_

"_Why did you come back?"_

"_I told you. Dresden is targeted to be bombed. Tonight. I've been in the city searching for you."_

"_And how would you know?"_

"_I was in the military. They…they deployed me to be part of the bombing team. But I couldn't do it. I knew…I knew that you had come back here. I searched you out several years ago, because I hoped I could apologize one day, and make things right for you and for Christa."_

Catrin snorted. "_Christa and I have done fine without you, Christoph."_

"_Have you really?"_

Long silence picked up throughout the room.

"_Better than I was doing on my own when we met," _she answered quietly. "_I told you, I'm not a girl anymore. I have responsibilities now. I take them seriously. And I've done better than most people ever expected. …I suppose I should thank you for that."_

"_Me?"_

"_I learned how to hope again from you. For you. You had no hope…and I had only the faintest glimmer of it. Besides, one of us needed to find some hope if we weren't going to bring each other to hell. And when you left, and I knew I was going to have a baby, hope is all I had left. It's kept me alive all these years. And it's getting a future for Christa. Somehow."_

Sitting in the icy room in the middle of a doomed city in living conditions that could only barely be considered above complete squalor, Jesse's heart broke for the girl he had known and the woman he had only just now met. It wasn't all his fault, not entirely, but he still felt responsible for her.

"_It can still do that, Catrin, but we can't stay here. There is no hope left for Dresden."_

"_There's always hope, Christoph. And really, where could we go? The refugees have all come here! There's nowhere left in Germany for the displaced."_

"_You don't have to leave entirely. We just need to get to the countryside, and stay there, for a few days. Please, Catrin. You don't have to do this for me. But do it for Christa."_

Catrin shook her head. _"It's getting dark. It's cold. There's nowhere to go out there. I'll take my chances here. Will you be staying the night?"_

_May as well. When the attack comes, they're going to need all the help I can give, and then some._

"_Sure."_

"_I'll start dinner, then."_

Jesse watched as Catrin got up slowly, moving about the cramped kitchen wearily. Christa, who had almost certainly been listening at the door came bounding in a moment later to help her mother. It was such a tranquil scene, Jesse felt so out of place there. _Please, God, if you're out there. Let me be wrong. _

The hours passed companionably, as dark fell over the hushed city outside. Inside, however, it was warm and bright, even if only barely. Christa rapidly adjusted to Jesse's presence, and was soon leading him around the three-room dwelling, showing him all the treasures she had collected in her short lifetime. A single porcelain doll, a gift from an unknown benefactor, made of fine Dresden porcelain, was the queen of the collection. Jesse smiled faintly when she showed it to him – she would never know that he had been directing his informant in Dresden to send money, and at Christmastime, anonymous gifts to the doorstep of this family he had never been able to know. Now, however, he couldn't imagine living his entire life and never knowing his daughter.

_But you can't stay in her life. Secrecy demands it. Don't get too close, Jesse. You've already shattered your own heart, but it isn't too late for them. Don't let them love you._

He had thought that leaving Winnie behind had ripped him apart. And it had. But it had left him raw, aching for another human connection. He had found it with Catrin, and now was finding an entirely different level of devotion to this frail young girl who had been in his heart from the moment he had first learned of her existence. How could he have ever thought that his life was complete before this?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Catrin watching. She was smiling and tears were streaming openly down her face. She absently scrubbed them away with the back of her hand, and went back to her work. Jesse handed the doll back to Christa and walked over to Catrin. He put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him for a long moment. Understanding flashed between them, and she leaned against him. For that one instant, it was as if he had never left her, and as if all the years that stretched between them hadn't been filled with guilt and anger. Catrin dissolved into tears again.

"_Mama, what's wrong?" _Christa asked anxiously.

"_Nothing, darling. Nothing at all,_" Catrin said quickly, "_everything's just fine._"

An explosion outside in the dark night shattered the fragile peace in the room. Catrin clung to him tightly, trembling as she realized that his warning was coming true.

"Fuck!" Jesse hissed.

"_What's going on?"_ Christa asked, terror making her voice shrill.

"_It's okay, Christa. Get your jacket, we need to get to shelter,"_ Catrin said, her voice incredibly steady despite the tremors that Jesse could see were wracking her body. Christa got up and scurried out of the room. "_What do we do, Christoph? Where can we go?"_

"_I don't know. I honestly don't, Catrin. But I swear, I will see to it that you and Christa are safe."_

"_Mama!" _Christa screamed in terror from the next room as more explosions crackled through the air, joined by the shrill sound of breaking glass. "_Mama, help! I'm scared!"_

Jesse and Catrin ran into the next room as debris broke what was left of the window and lit the curtains on fire. Christa was huddling in a corner, arms over her head, crying. Blood was running down her arms from where flying glass from the breaking of the window had hit her. The fire was beginning to catch and spread, separating Christa from the doorway where Jesse and Catrin stood.

"_Christa! My baby!" _Catrin screamed. Jesse's lungs were scorching from the smoke and heat. He could only hope that his immortality and resistance to harm would protect him from this as well. He jumped across the flames as Catrin shrieked again and more explosions shook the night.

"_I've got you Christa, just trust me!" _Jesse said, picking her up. She struggled slightly, afraid of the flames but even more terrified of being trapped behind them. She screamed in pain as they crossed the wall of fire again and her skin scorched slightly. But then they were out of the room and, without pausing to put Christa down, Jesse and Catrin ran out of the door and down the wooden stairs, out to the sidewalk and chaos in the city.

Fiery death was raining down from above, destroying homes, crushing monuments, and sending smoke and screams up into the night sky like some horrible mockery of human life. The angry hornet buzz of planes in the air belied the presence of more bombers and more indiscriminate death to come.

"_Where should we go?"_ Catrin asked, shouting over the sounds of chaos.

"_Anywhere! We need to get out of the center of town!" _Jesse shouted back. The three of them joined the masses that were now running, anywhere, just trying to live to see the morning. If the weapons had been normal bombs, they might have stood a chance in their bomb cellars. But the weather conditions, wooden buildings, and close proximity of buildings and cellars combined with the firebombs made it a perfect inferno.

The devil himself would be proud of the level of destruction being inflicted upon Dresden that night, the pain, the death, the fear.

The fires whipped themselves up into a frenzy, spreading more quickly than people could run. Everywhere there were people pushing, shoving, trying to get away. Where anyone fell, they were soon trampled. Choking black smoke issued out of every building. Flames danced toward the pitch dark sky. Miniature explosions from inside of buildings and storehouses flung burning debris at the running crowds, felling those who might otherwise have stood even a miniscule chance. But once they were down, they may as well have been finished. Jesse's lungs were aching, and around him, people were fainting from oxygen deprivation. A well stood off to his right – still carrying Christa in one arm, he grabbed Catrin with the other, and led her forward, squirming out of his jacket. He would be fine no matter what happened. But they needed something to protect their lungs. He ripped off the sleeves of his jacket and immersed them in a bucket of water drawn from the well, knowing that they could hardly spare the time but that fainting from the smoke would kill them just as surely as moving too slowly.

"_Tie this around your face!" _he shouted, handing one of the soaked rags to Catrin and another to Christa, before tying another one around his own nose and mouth. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. They took off running again, meeting smoke and fire bellowing forth anywhere they thought they might be able to turn.

All of Dresden was trapped in the hellish inferno consuming the center of the city.

Chaos reigned. Everything was jumbled and confused. Explosions all around them continued, thoroughly disorienting everyone. The dancing shadows from the raging flames only added to the confusion, and the covering darkness of thick smoke and ash hid viable escape routes from site. Debris scattered at random intervals tripped them up, and more flew through the air.

Too late, Jesse saw the beam falling from overhead. He managed to dodge it, but it hit Catrin, knocking her over and leaving her legs crushed beneath its weight.

"_Mama!"_ Christa screamed as Jesse nearly dropped her in his horror. "_Mama! Mama!"_

"_Go! Go without me! Christoph, take care of her, please!" _Catrin begged weakly. "_Don't wait for the fires to get you. I should have listened to you, Christoph, but please, save my Christa!" _

Jesse's vision blurred with tears. He was struggling to lift the beam off of her, but it was too heavy and the fires were rampaging ever closer. Ash was raining all around him, singeing through his clothing. The cloth over his face had fallen out of place, and the smoke was choking him. Christa was sobbing, but he couldn't see her. People all around him were screaming. Catrin's skirt lit on fire, and he knew that was the end.

His heart and soul screaming for forgiveness she wouldn't live to grant him, he picked Christa back up and ran, leaving Catrin to her horrible fate. He was crying too hard to see where he was going, but he trusted to his own invincibility to see him and Christa to safety.

--

Two days later.

The fires were finally beginning to die down, and the hysteria was only just beginning.

Christa had grown unresponsive, and Jesse feared for the worst. She was still breathing, but it was ragged and harsh.

_Smoke inhalation._

Jesse didn't know what to do. Christa was effectively an orphan now that Catrin had died in that terrifying conflagration. He certainly couldn't care for her. But at least she was in a refugee shelter. He could stay with her long enough to see to it that she got medical care. Long enough to find someone who could care for her. And then he'd rip both of their hearts out to leave her alone.

_Can I really do that to her?_

_Do I have any other choice?_

_Don't think about it. You have now. Stay with her while you can. Worry about the future when it arrives. _

Somehow, that was a more terrifying prospect than anything else had been yet.

--

Jesse would never forget being in that understaffed, under-supplied hospital with Christa three months later when Germany surrendered and the Allies won the continental war. Given that he would live forever, that would be a long time.

But how could he ever forget it?

Smoke inhalation had permanently scarred her lungs, necessitating serious medical intervention to keep her breathing at all. The prognosis was severe. She'd need treatment for the rest of her life. And that was costly, and difficult to access. Or they could give her morphine and let nature take its course.

Jesse was horrified at the matter-of-fact nature with which the doctors in Dresden addressed the issue, but at the same time understood. They had been battling death for the souls of the bombing's victims for days, and they were exhausted, their morale was drained. Death had won every showdown thus far. They had no reasons left to hope.

And so he had taken Christa to Berlin. He still had enough money in a German account to see to it that she got the finest treatment available – not that that meant much, given that the Nazi government was throwing everything behind its attempts to win the war.

Jesse, on the other hand, was throwing everything he had into battling death for his daughter's life.

He didn't think he could survive losing her.

Slowly, the girl revived a little. And when the Allied victory was declared, she was even able to speak enough to ask what that meant for them.

"_I don't know, Christa,_" Jesse replied. But they were in the western half of the city, and as American and British and French troops began to occupy it per the conditions of the war's end, he could only hope that it meant that things would start to look up again.

He didn't know for certain, but Catrin had finally taught him how to hope again. At least for now.

--

They'd had to leave Germany to get Christa treatment. Jesse had somehow managed to negotiate that, all without them suspecting that he had been the Robert Johannson to go MIA. In fact, Robert Johannson was listed among the dead, much to Jesse's relief. Yet again, he had managed to evade the repercussions of living forever and the insane ideas that led him to act on.

_One day, I'm going to get my ass kicked for this, _he'd thought at the time_._

He had a growing suspicion that that day was coming, when his actions would finally get the better of him.

He had finally gotten the paperwork through to take Christa to England with him in order to get her treated at the children's hospital in London. But the time was fast approaching when he would have to figure out what to do with her beyond that.

And then, just when he had almost convinced himself that he could convince Tuck and Mae and Miles to accept Christa as they had accepted Winnie, it was no longer an issue.

Christa died just before her thirteenth birthday from an infection she contracted while in the hospital for treatment.

Jesse returned to the States, very nearly a broken man. His family met him when he arrived, relieved to see him home safe, anxious about the traumas that he had endured.

"Oh, Jesse," Mae said, giving him a long hug. Tuck seemed lost for words. The reunion was a sad, somber one, and they went home.

--

Jesse retreated into himself for months. The months turned to years, and his family's worries increased. No longer pining for Winnie like a lovesick boy, Jesse had acquired the cares and wounds of an old man, with no promise of death on the horizon to comfort him through his darkest moments. He knew all too well that whatever reunion, comfort, and healing death held, it would be denied to him.

It was Miles, though, who got through to him, and kept him from falling back into old patterns of alcoholism and self-destruction. He found Jesse sitting up one night, uncorking a bottle, and took it out of his hand.

"Don't do that, Jess."

Jesse just shrugged. Miles sat next to him, forcing the cork back into the bottle, and looked at his brother.

"You have to live for them, Jesse. Just because they're gone doesn't mean they don't matter anymore. They're watching, always. Catrin and Christa aren't any further gone from you than Anna and Bo and my Mary are from me."

Jesse just gave him a skeptical glare.

"I mean it, Jess," Miles said softly. "It took me ages to realize it…sometimes I even still forget. But you can't give up. You have to keep living your life."

Jesse laughed bitterly.

"Whatever happens, Jesse. You still have us. Tuck, Mae. Me. We all understand. You know we do."

"It hurts so much, Miles. I failed them."

"Jesse, I know you. And I know that you did everything you could for that little girl. And I know that if you had it to do all over again, you'd still give it your all. But sometimes your all isn't enough. Believe me, I know."

"She was turning thirteen, Miles. She wasn't even a teenager. She never fell in love, she never left home, she hadn't even stopped collecting dolls. She was so innocent…"

"She's in a better place."

It took all night, and the sun was crawling over the horizon by the time Jesse and Miles had reached an understanding, and an agreement.

As long as they lived, they would live to make their children proud. Even – and especially – when it killed them inside.

It helped them both to know that they weren't alone in their pain, and somehow they found the strength to keep moving together. Jesse would always be grateful to Miles for his strength, Catrin for her hope, and Christa for her courage. Borrowing from them, he could just bring himself to face each coming day, and eventually, perhaps, to hope for something better than simply existing.

* * *

Yes, this chapter was horribly morbid, but it was not intended to be gratuitously so. There is some reason for it other than that the tone of this story has been and will continue to be quite dark.

The main reason is that history is not a pleasant place to live – especially during the World War II period – but that's exactly where Jesse lives, as a sort of permanent spectator. We all know about the Holocaust, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, yet most people don't really seem to know about the Allies' Dresden firebombings, despite that they're also an important part of that history. Since Catrin was originally from the city of Dresden (I had originally chosen the city more as a nod to my love of The Dresden Dolls, because they're punk-cabaret and she worked in a Cabaret nightclub, rather than for any deeper plot plan, although I did intend for her to be a complicating point when Jesse got involved with WWII. This is just how that manifested, because after a bit of research into the city itself, I discovered the history of the firebombing and the aftermath, which was too major to conveniently avoid addressing) it seemed like something that would most definitely impact Jesse. Being uncomfortable with having Jesse himself commit mass murder – even as an act of war, on orders – against the city where his former lover and his daughter were living, that left his only possible experience with the situation as either hearing about it from afar, or being directly involved. Direct involvement seemed much more important – mainly since there was much left unsaid about his relationship to Catrin, and even Christa. (And believe me, there's a whole huge backstory there, but, like most of the backstories I've worked out for any of the various OCs I introduce, it won't be actually explicitly stated…I just feel like I should know the backstories to give the main story the appropriate depth.) And, horrible as it is, what happened to Catrin is actually quite representative of what happened to a lot of Dresdeners. It's estimated that somewhere around 25,000 people died in the firestorm that the Allies' bombing created, to say nothing of those who suffered and/or died from complications relating to it (hence, Christa's fate, and really, she did better than she would have because Jesse was there to help her).

I hope I didn't depress you too thoroughly, and that you still managed to enjoy it. ^^

Winnie's section is next, and should be finished in a few days.


	14. Ch 13: It Only Hurts When I Breathe

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes.

A NOTE ON DATES. There was some confusion (at least, I imagine that if one person bothered to comment on it, more than one person was confused about it – but thank you, quwira, for taking the time to point it out!) about the dates on the last entry.

Mini-rundown-- US involvement in World War II began with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The European half of the war had begun in 1939 (I believe, but I'm a bit shaky on that) when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and ended in 1945 with the surrender of Germany twelve weeks after the Allied firebombing of Dresden in February. The Pacific half of the war ended in August 1945 after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Japan to unconditionally surrender (on the sole condition that they got to keep their emperor – gotta love those details of history). The confusion revolves around the fact that the last entry was dated as being between 1935 and 1947.

The way I've been going about dating things is that the earlier date is the date of the first section of each chapter (hence, Miles letting curiosity get the better of him and snooping through stuff was in 1935) and the later date is the date of the last section (so, the conversation between Jesse and Miles about needing to keep living for those they had lost would have taken place two years after the end of the war, approximately). The events in between range throughout that period, but are presented chronologically. (Hence, the brothers enlisting when war is declared in Europe (1939, as above) because they realize it's only a matter of time, then Pearl Harbor (1941), then the attack on Dresden (1945), then the occupation of Germany (began 1945) and Jesse's getting out, then his return to the States and beginning of his mourning period (a few months out the end before he went home because he stuck around for Christa) before the last section when he and Miles make a pact to haul themselves out of the emotional pits they had been wallowing in (which I think I said was after months had passed and become years…I meant two years, but I missed that detail in editing because I wanted to get it up quickly.) So, the entry ended in 1947, properly, after the war had been over for a couple of years.

I hope that cleared up any confusion that may have been left. xD

Anyway. Back to the story.

* * *

January 17, 1934 – October 12, 1947

"Allow me to help you, Winnie," Jonathan Smith said, offering her a hand out of the car.

In the four months he had been corresponding with Winnie since first meeting in person, they had grown to be quite friendly. It was a bittersweet friendship, since it reminded her so much of what could have been had Jesse not had to leave so abruptly… Had jealousy not rotted Alex's heart away… She wondered if this friendship was similarly fated, but willed herself not to care as he helped her out into the bright sunshine of Rochester on a winter's day. Behind her, Mae clambered out slowly, rather less than enthusiastic about being taken away from her friends in Treegap to visit the home of a man who she saw only as a rival – and a lesser one at that – to her father for a place of importance in her mother's heart.

"Ah, Thomas!" Jonathan said brightly to a boy of about eighteen, who was coming reluctantly out of the house. "Come meet our guests – Mrs. Winifred Jackson, and her daughter, Mae."

Winnie knew from their letters that Thomas was Jonathan's son by his first and only marriage. His mother had died in childbirth, and such motherly attention as he had ever received had come from the housekeepers and other women working in his father's household. Jonathan had opined at great length that, between that and his own frequent absence from the family home, it was no wonder that Thomas was always getting into whatever trouble there was to be found in the town. The most recent being excessive drinking, illegal gambling, and one extremely ill-advised episode involving stolen horses, three girls of questionable character from the town, and an impromptu trip downriver on a raft to Lake Ontario the previous summer that Winnie wasn't entirely certain she understood.

Thomas grunted his acknowledgment of the two women, looking about as enthusiastic as Mae was, and Winnie allowed herself a moment to wonder if this trip would perhaps be a complete disaster. Jonathan raised an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head slightly.

Truth be told, she wasn't terribly enthusiastic herself. Jonathan had become a dear friend in the space of only a few short months, but she feared that perhaps he wanted more of her. She couldn't give more. Even what she was giving was running a terrible risk. As for his idea that perhaps Mae's mild manner and sweet temperament might perhaps wear off a touch if his son were to show her around, she was rather less than optimistic. She hadn't told him, but not all was well in the mother-daughter idyll that everyone believed they lived in. Mae had been deeply angry with her recently, and she was beginning to suspect that it had something to do with Jonathan himself, for her behavior had only grown more sullen while they were in transit.

Winnie sighed as they all turned toward the house.

--

"So are you going to marry him or not?" Mae demanded a few days later while they were preparing to sleep.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Mae," Winnie said slowly, completely taken off her guard.

"Don't you? Fine. Jonathan. Are you going to marry him?" Her expression was guarded, but Winnie could sense anxiety and anger rolling off her fourteen year old daughter in waves.

"I've only known him for four months, Mae. Don't be ridiculous."

"Then why did we come here?"

Winnie couldn't come up with a better answer than 'because I'm lonely', but she didn't think Mae would accept that. She merely shrugged.

Mae snorted and crawled into bed, refusing to say another word to her. Winnie sighed and turned out the light.

She didn't sleep that night.

--

"Thomas, why don't you show Mae around the property today?" Jonathan suggested casually over breakfast.

Both kids looked aghast as they stared at him and Winnie, but at a stern glance from Jonathan, Thomas nodded his sullen agreement.

"Come on," he said to Mae, tugging her hand. "Let's get out of here before they come up with something else for us to do," he added in a whisper that was just loud enough for them to hear. She and Jonathan shared a long glance as the two left the breakfast room.

"Are you sure that was a good idea, Jonathan?" Winnie asked hesitantly. "I mean, we just had a snowstorm, and what if they get lost and…"

"Don't worry so much, Winnie. Thomas knows this property like the back of his hand. He won't go taking Mae anyplace that isn't safe."

Winnie shrugged and turned back to her breakfast, feeling rather less certain than Jonathan looked.

"Sir," a maid said, coming into the room half an hour later, "your son and Miss Jackson have disappeared. They got away from Jack, and we can't find them anywhere."

"I'll kill the boy," Jonathan hissed as Winnie dropped her spoon into her teacup and hurried from the room.

--

The kids had been missing for three days. They'd managed to trace them as far as Lake Ontario, which had completely frozen over for the first time since anyone could remember. But there they had vanished – they'd taken skates and skis, and it was anyone's best guess where they were heading. Winnie was in a panic, and Jonathan was greatly upset although rather less afraid.

"I have everyone in the area out looking for them, Winnie," he assured her, "they'll be brought back soon enough." His tight-lipped expression rather betrayed the fact that it was a hope, not a certainty.

"She's doing this to punish me, I'm certain of it!" Winnie groaned in exasperation.

"To punish you? Whatever for?"

Winnie brushed the comment aside. "We have to go look for them, Jonathan."

"Nonsense. The best thing we can do is wait here in case they come back."

"But you have all the servants here- surely they-"

"Trust me, Winifred. I have it all under control."

Winnie didn't like his patronizing attitude, but at the same time it was slightly soothing having someone else take control for once.

--

For their part, Mae and Thomas were having quite the adventure, and hadn't thought twice about their parents back on the estate.

"It's so beautiful!" Mae breathed, unable to find her voice, as Thomas showed her the forest. Ice crystals glittered from every surface. "It doesn't get nearly this pretty at home."

"We've had a lot of snow this year, and it's been colder than usual," Thomas said matter-of-factly, strapping on a pair of skates beside the frozen lake. "So it's a lot more dramatic than it would normally be. I can't remember Lake Ontario ever freezing over," he added, almost as an afterthought, "but it means that we can even hop over to Canada, if you want."

"Really?" Mae had never been away from home, her mother always keeping her nearby as if terrified that something would happen to her, and she was flushed with freedom. They had been traveling for four days, staying with friends of Jonathan's at night, friends that neither of their parents would ever approve of, and experiencing a kind of world that she had never guessed might exist.

Just the night before, they had sat around a table playing poker, and then built a bonfire outside. Some of the boys had played music, and the rest of them danced with the girls who had come. There was food and alcohol, and it had all gone to Mae's head.

It didn't hurt that she was becoming quite infatuated with Thomas, and he, unlike most of the other boys she had ever met, treated her like an equal, rather than a child.

Thomas nodded, stepping onto the frozen surface of the lake.

"Come on!" he shouted to her, skimming across the surface.

Mae blushed. "I…I don't know how," she called out plaintively.

"Don't know how! Well, come on! I'll show you!" Mae grinned and strapped on the skates, hesitantly stepping onto the surface of the lake where she promptly slipped and fell.

Thomas laughed. Mae pouted.

"Oh, relax. It happens to everyone the first time," he said brightly, brushing his sandy blonde bangs out of his eyes. It struck Mae how very green they were. He gave her a hand up, and she leaned on him heavily as she tried to gain her balance. He simply chuckled and let her.

"Don't let go of my hand," he said, when she had finally balanced herself shakily. "And copy what I do with my feet, okay?"

--

It was completely an accident of bad timing that Winnie witnessed Thomas and Mae's first kiss.

After two days of non-stop insisting that Jonathan do something to find the kids, they took his car and went driving along the river – stopping in every town where they had been seen. Finally, they arrived at the lake, and in the distance, saw two bundled up shapes skating. The sound of laughter echoed across to them.

"Thomas!" a voice suspiciously like Mae's shrieked out, as a snowball collided with one of the bundled up teens.

"Get me if you can, Mae!" a young man's voice shouted back.

"Found them," Jonathan muttered, switching off the ignition. He and Winnie shared a long look. "I'm sorry, Winnie, that my son's misguided ways have spread to your daughter."

"I don't care about that, Jonathan. I can deal with Mae."

They got out of the car just as the Mae-bundle caught up to the Thomas-bundle, and the two skated over to the bank.

"If they see us coming, they'll run," Winnie said, realizing it suddenly.

"Then we'll sneak around through the woods behind them." Jonathan took her hand and led her away down a side track. As they approached, the conversation between the two teens grew louder, and Winnie couldn't help her curiosity.

"…most fun I've had in, well, in my entire life, Thomas! Thank you. I wish my mother would let me enjoy my life."

"Please, my father would kill me if he saw us here. He doesn't let me do anything either."

"But at least you can get away. I'm always stuck with her, and she's never happy. She'd never be able to enjoy a day like this." Mae sighed, pausing for a long moment. "It's sad. I love her, but I don't want to end up like her."

"You won't, Mae. You have too much…_life_…to you. I was upset to have to show a kid – and a girl, no less – around. But you don't act like a kid, or a girl. You know how to have fun."

"That's the thing, Thomas. My mother…don't tell anyone this, okay? I found her journal. And, when she was two years older than me, she ran away from home one summer. And she stayed with a family and fell in love with one of the brothers. And then their parents got arrested for murder, and she helped them escape!" Winnie's heart froze as she listened to her daughter recounting the tale. "It was all so very exciting, but then…well. She turned her back on it. She decided that she had to live a boring life for some reason. Then she married my Papa, even though she was still in love with the other guy. And she ran away from him, too, when I was little. And then she came back. Ever since, she's been…different. Boring. Afraid of _everything_ since then. I don't want to end up like her. She's not happy."

"Sounds like she's living in a cage, but she's the only one who thinks it's locked."

Mae sighed. "I know. But. Oh, I don't know." There was a long pause. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Do you have anymore of that cherry wine?"

Thomas laughed. More silence. Winnie couldn't believe what was going on. _How dare Mae trust this boy with my secrets!_

"I think my father wants to marry your mother," Thomas said at great length.

"Oh, no! But then…we'd be brother and sister…and then…I couldn't, I couldn't, couldn't-" a space in the branches obscuring Winnie's vision opened up just as Mae leaned toward Thomas "-kiss you," she finished breathlessly as she hesitantly pressed her lips to his.

Winnie couldn't bring herself to watch anymore. Jonathan noticed her distress, and gently pushed her aside to look as well.

_I guess he wasn't listening_, Winnie realized as his expression grew grim.

"I'm sorry, Winnie, we'll stop this immediately," he whispered, stepping quietly through the snow. Winnie watched as he came up behind the obliviously kissing teenagers and clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. Mae and Thomas jumped.

"Mr. Smith!" Mae squeaked.

"Father!" Thomas growled.

Winnie stepped into view.

"Mother!" Mae gasped.

"Oh, shit," Thomas groaned. Jonathan cuffed him on the head.

"Mae, get up. We're heading back to Clearwater immediately," Winnie said sternly.

Jonathan looked at Winnie. She didn't look back. She had had it with her daughter's antics.

--

"But Mother, you don't understand!" Mae whined, throwing herself onto the bed and pouting.

"I understand perfectly well, Mae. You went through my stuff, ran off with that boy, told personal details about our life to him without knowing if you could really trust him-"

"You trust his father well enough!"

"His father doesn't have a track record of breaking the law! Thomas is an extremely bad influence on you, and I won't have anymore of this. You're too young to know what you want Mae, so believe me, he is not what you want."

"The same way Jesse Tuck wasn't what you wanted?" Mae snarled.

Winnie slapped her across the face.

"How dare you!" she hissed.

"What? How is this any different, Mother?! Your parents had no reason at all to not want you associating with them, the same as you don't have one to not want me associating with him!"

"That was different. They didn't break the law."

"They were arrested for _murder_!" Mae shouted incredulously.

"That doesn't mean they were guilty of it. Now get up."

"You say they weren't guilty – I'm telling you, Mother, he may have done stupid things, but he's innocent of criminal intent."

"If you knew half the things that boy has done-"

"I know all the things that boy has done! He told me."

"Oh, yes, and he has every reason in the world to be honest with you, Mae," Winnie retorted, every word dripping with sarcasm as she threw clothes into their suitcases.

"He told me more stories than you've heard from his father, in more detail than I'm sure you heard. Give me some credit for being able to tell when someone is lying to me!"

"Not another word, Mae. I'm still your mother, so what I say goes. Now. Finish packing, I'm going to settle some other details."

"You mean kiss Jonathan goodbye."

Winnie slapped her again, and immediately felt guilty as Mae dissolved into tears.

_Have I really fallen this far? _she wondered for a moment. _No. This is for the best. Jesse wouldn't have done anything to hurt me. This boy…Thomas has little sense of decency, even his father says so. It's to protect her. She'll see that soon enough. …I hope._

She turned on her heel and left the room.

--

"Winnie, please don't go," Jonathan said quietly. "I'm terribly sorry for my son's behavior, but please stay. I've seen to his punishment, it won't happen again. I promise."

"Jonathan, I can't. I have to look out for my daughter's well-being, and right now she has deluded herself into thinking that she's in love with your son."

Jonathan pursed his lips and considered this for a moment.

"Not to sound terribly calculating, Winnie, but perhaps that isn't a bad thing."

"What? How can you even suggest such a thing?"

"Well, Thomas was insisting that he has some measure of affection for the girl, and that it would be "idiotic" of us to separate him from the only decent girl he's ever had any feelings for. And if she feels the same…perhaps we can foster this. There are worse matches they could make in the long run. If we chaperone their meetings, and restrict their ability to see each other, perhaps her good nature will indeed rub off on him."

"Jonathan, you'd have to be mad to believe that. He's the one rubbing off on her."

"And yet when we found them, their relationship was clearly innocent. Trust me, Winnie – that is a first."

Winnie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Even less could she believe the words that came out of her mouth, but Mae's accusations that she was behaving hypocritically given her own past with Jesse Tuck were still ringing in her mind, overriding her better sense as a mother.

"We're leaving now. But…perhaps…you and Jonathan could visit in the summertime, once Mae has had a chance to cool her head and realize that this is infatuation, not love."

Jonathan smiled a wry smile. "And if their heads haven't cooled?"

"Then we'll decide what to do then, won't we?"

--

Summer and winter visits passed, and Mae's affection for Thomas never seemed to wane. Indeed, it seemed only to grow stronger, and by the time the girl was seventeen, Winnie was feeling harder and harder pressed to find reasons why she had every right to intervene.

After all, she herself had known that she was in love by seventeen, been courted the following two years, and been wed at nineteen. She was a mother at twenty. Mae was almost a woman grown, and Winnie was losing her ability to protect her.

She wondered if she hadn't lost it that day in the crystal snow.

Seventeen and beautiful, Mae looked just like her mother in almost every way, except for her striking cerulean eyes. Winnie had provided nothing but the best for her, and it showed. She was graceful, talented, charming…and headstrong. She was never content to bow to "a woman's place". But then, Winnie hadn't been either.

"Mother?" she called from her room that June morning. Winnie sighed and finished applying her makeup – a ritual she had perfected over the years in an attempt to look something like the age she was supposed to be – and walked down the hall to Mae's room.

"Yes, darling?" she asked.

"Why do you always put that hideous makeup on? It makes you look so old." From the expression on Mae's face, Winnie could tell that it had troubled her for some time.

"I'd rather not have to deal with gossip and jealousy from the neighbor women that I'm still better preserved than they are," she laughed.

"Honestly, Mother," Mae said. Winnie's smile faltered and she sat down. She had always hated lying to her daughter, the only person she still had in the world. "You haven't aged a day. It's…Mother, it's not natural. What happened?"

Mae's voice was shaking and she couldn't meet Winnie's eyes.

Winnie sighed heavily. She wanted to tell her the truth. But she wondered if that would make things worse.

"Mama?" Mae prompted in a small, childlike voice, pulling Winnie back to the present moment. She only ever called her "Mama" when something really mattered to her, or when she needed comfort. Same thing, really, Winnie supposed.

"Once upon a time," she breathed, "there was a family who lived in Treegap woods."

"I don't want a fairy tale!" Mae said stubbornly, finally meeting her mother's eyes.

"I know." Winnie's voice was sad, heavy with the weight of years spent in secrecy. "You're not going to get one."

The two women shared a long glance.

The doorbell rang.

"Thomas!" Mae sighed, getting up and running from the room, a faint hint of lavender perfume marking her passing.

Winnie buried her face in her hands. _And the moment of truth finally arrives. I knew it would come someday. God, I never thought I would think this, but thank God for Thomas and Jonathan's summer visits!_

--

The summer visit passed, and Mae had almost seemed to forget the question that she had asked. Winnie, grateful for the reprieve, spent her days and nights agonizing about how to finally tell her daughter, because she knew that she had to.

Jonathan noticed her anxiety the last night of the visit.

"Relax, Winnie," he said gently, patting her hands as she fidgeted. "Our children are getting along famously, the plan has worked. Thomas intends to propose, once he finishes at the university."

"Oh, yes, THAT was exactly what I needed to hear," Winnie murmured sarcastically under her breath, watching Thomas and Mae at the other end of the dinner table. They were talking in low whispers, holding hands, and staring into each other's eyes adoringly.

It made Winnie's heart ache for all that she had never been able to have.

She still didn't like the idea, but even she had to admit that Thomas had tamed a bit over the past three years.

The evening passed uneventfully until after she and Mae had seen the men off.

"I'm going to miss him dreadfully," Mae sighed.

Winnie forced a smile and turned away from her, lighting the lamps in the living room.

"Mother?" Mae asked hesitantly. "Remember the question I asked you…the day they arrived?"

Winnie froze. "Yes."

"What were you going to say? I've wondered, ever since that night."

Winnie sat down. Mae came over to the sofa and sat beside her.

"The family I spent a summer with, before I turned sixteen…they weren't an ordinary family, Mae."

"I should say not," Mae snorted.

"Not like that," Winnie said, shaking her head. The golden glow of the lamplight made her feel as if she were in some sort of faerie place, telling her tale.

"What do you mean, then?"

"They couldn't die. Or age. Or even, really, suffer injury."

"That's not possible," Mae said, but her laughter died on her lips as she saw her mother's expression. "…Isn't it?"

In answer, Winnie picked up a letter opener and before Mae could protest, stabbed her wrist. Blood dripped onto the hardwood floor for a moment, but the wound quickly sealed itself.

Mae's expression was one of absolute horror.

"What did you…How did you…Oh, my God!"

Winnie pulled out a handkerchief and mopped up the blood from the floor and from her skin.

"They shared their secret with me. I'm sharing it with you. Mae, darling, you can _never _tell anyone. Not even Thomas. Not even Jonathan knows."

"But…_how_?!"

"There was a spring. The water makes you immortal. But it's a curse, not a blessing. The world is closing inward. Living forever is dangerous. If anyone knew, they'd all want to drink the water. But they don't realize…"

"You drank it when you were seventeen. When you were my age!"

"No. Angus Tuck warned me. He told me…not to be afraid of dying, but to be afraid of not living. And he was right. Jesse wanted me to drink it. He said he'd come back for me, when the time was right. Miles was…broken, from losing his wife and children. And Mae…I named you after her. She was just kind to me. She had a music box – the same lullaby I used to sing you to sleep with. Remember?"

Mae nodded, humming a few bars of the tune.

Winnie sighed. "It broke my heart at first, deciding not to drink the water, because I knew it meant that I couldn't be with Jesse. So I surrendered to what the world wanted me to be. Wife, mother, demure in any case. But I failed at that."

"No, Mama…"

"I did, Mae. Your father and I should never have married, most likely. The fact that I loved someone else broke him. He could never believe that I had loved someone without. Well. Without giving myself to him. It destroyed our marriage, and I ran away. My fear of being alone, and of having to live a loveless, joyless life, chased me away and kept me from repairing things. And I abandoned you."

"Where did you go?"

"West. I ended up in Arizona, where I met an Indian woman. Her tribe was originally from this area. They knew of the spring. And they knew of a cure. I've carried that secret for thirteen years now, and I'll carry that secret until I find the Tucks again. I only drank the water after I learned of the cure – and I only have just enough to reverse the magic on them and myself."

Mae was silent for a long moment.

"Mae, darling, you can't tell anyone."

"I won't, Mama," she said in a half-whisper, and stood up. "I just…need to think about this."

Winnie nodded.

"Are you alright, Mama?"

"I'm so scared that I'm waiting for nothing," she whispered, finally giving voice to the fear that had plagued her forever. She couldn't fight the tears anymore.

Mae sat back down, and put an arm around her mother's shoulders.

"You're not all that much older than me, really," she said softly, realizing that her mother would be a 24 year old until whatever point in the future she found this family.

"Except I have years more experience," Winnie muttered.

"Experience of what? Crying? Mama, you let your first love and most of your life slip through your fingers."

The words stung, but Winnie knew that they were mostly true. She bit back a retort. In the morning, she could ground Mae. But for now, she just needed the comfort of another person's caring presence.

--

The wedding took place on July 10, 1940, much to Winnie's consternation. But Mae was so excited and happy that Winnie couldn't bring herself to deny her daughter this. And so it was that she let her daughter walk down the aisle to marry a man she had never approved of.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder if her own mother had been willing to let her choose her own course, perhaps she would be off seeing the world with Jesse right now. And so she set aside her feelings of maternal anxiety, plastered a smile onto her face, and tried not to show that she was anything less than perfectly thrilled for her only child.

She and Jonathan had pulled out all the stops to celebrate the wedding for their children, and the day was absolutely perfect for it. Just as her own mother had done, Winnie woke Mae that morning and helped her into her gown, and styled her hair, and wove roses through the style just as Mae Tuck had said that she had done.

For one day, they were all able to ignore the rising shadow of the war in Europe, and simply celebrate.

Later, Winnie would reflect, she should have known that it couldn't last.

--

The draft began before the war did, for the States, and Thomas was summoned to go. Mae initially went to live with him on the military base, but when he was deployed to the South Pacific in winter of 1943, she went back to live with her mother.

Their first child, a son, Thomas Maxwell Smith, Jr., was born three days before he arrived in the States on March 7, 1944, sent home from severe injuries resulting in gangrene and the amputation of one of his legs, accompanied by a severe case of malaria.

Winnie was aghast to see the carnage inflicted by the war, even more so to realize that he was one of the 'lucky ones' who had lived long enough to be sent home from his unit.

The psychological and emotional scars he bore were terrifying. The relapses into malaria almost more than the two women together could deal with. The military doctors told them that he would never be entirely right again. Jonathan couldn't handle the sight of his only son laid so low, and slipped into a depression.

It was terrible.

And then, the war ended. And Thomas and Mae dedicated themselves to trying to move on – a feat which Winnie secretly admired, believing it much easier said than done.

Three more children followed in short succession. Winnie thought all this a bit fast, but as nearly every other couple in that generation was having children at the same accelerated rate, and as she wasn't the one responsible for raising them, she kept her mouth shut as first Jonathan Frank Smith III was born on June 17 1945, then the twins, Alice Lynn and Lillian Rose on November 13, 1946.

--

The doorbell rang. Winnie wasn't used to having company since Mae's time had become completely filled with caring for her husband and four young children.

The doorbell rang again, more insistently.

"I'm coming!" she shouted, grumbling slightly to herself as she opened the door. "Mae? Mae, darling, why are you crying? What's happening?"

"Mama, he's relapsed again!" Mae said, throwing herself into her mother's arms, tears streaking down her cheeks. "I called the doctors, and they're with him, but Mama, I heard them talking and they don't think he's going to make it!"

"It's alright, Mae, sweetheart. I'm here. It'll all be okay."

"Mama, please, I can't lose him. You know where the water is, you've taken it yourself. Mama…"

Winnie froze as she realized what her daughter was asking.

"I can't do that, Mae. Better he die now than be trapped in a life like that."

Mae sobbed harder. "Mama, please!"

It broke Winnie's heart to see her daughter in such a desperate situation, but she knew that giving in to her wouldn't do anyone any favors.

"I can't, Mae. We would be doing him a grave disservice. I know it hurts, sweetheart-"

"No, you don't! You let the only person you ever loved leave you, knowing that you could always find him again! I won't get that chance, Mama. If he dies, that's it. I'm stuck here and he's gone, and it's just me and our babies and I can't do this by myself, Mama. I can't. I can't."

"You won't have to, Mae. I'm always here."

"Exactly! You'll always be here! And so will the man you love! You'll never have to suffer this. You'll never have to suffer like I am! You're just being a selfish bitch. You never liked him, anyway, and now you…you…"

Mae turned and ran out the door.

"Mae, come back!" Winnie shouted, feeling her heart rip in two. "Mae please! Mae, _stop!"_

Mae didn't stop, or turn around. Winnie grabbed a shawl and ran after her.

--

The funeral was a somber affair. How could it be otherwise? A young man, who by rights should have lived for many more years, stolen away by a tropical disease he should never have acquired – it was tragedy piled upon tragedy.

The death of his son had completely broken Jonathan. He sat in the back of the church moaning and crying so piteously, Winnie didn't think that even the damned in hell could rival it.

Mae was pale and wan, having lost a lot of weight in her husband's last days. The children were abnormally quiet, and even the girls, not yet a year old, were silent. Winnie had tried to speak to her daughter in the days since she had shown up on her doorstep, but she feared that their relationship had been forever destroyed.

She still stood by the fact that she had done Thomas a favor by not trapping him in his broken body for all of eternity, but Mae had many years yet before she could understand that.

Mysteriously, Grandmother's words floated out of the past to her. _And what about the suffocation of watching your entire world move past you?_

_If I had known that this was what you meant, I would have refused._

"Too late now, though," she muttered, as the priest finished the homily and the pallbearers took the coffin out of the church.

She didn't have the energy left in her soul to go to the cemetery. Besides, she had paid her respects. She stood wearily and walked back to her home. Once inside the door, she closed it, leaving it unlocked, and sat down heavily on her couch.

She was still sitting there, staring off into a corner and wondering if she had done the right thing when a small knock came at the door, making it swing open.

"Mama?" Mae whispered. Winnie jumped. "Oh, Mama," she said, fighting back tears. "I don't know what to do anymore, Mama."

Winnie stood and sat her daughter down on the couch. "I don't either, sweetheart."

"Mama, I'm so scared. I can't do this without Thomas. I love him so much…"

"You'll keep living, sweetheart. It's what all of us have to do in the end."

"But Mama, you don't understand…I. He. We were…are… going to have another baby. I can't even look at the four, they look so much like him. And little Tom, today, he asked when Daddy's going to come back…Mama, how do I tell them? How do I continue like this?"

Winnie pulled her daughter to her and held her as she cried, letting her vent all of her tears and fears. That, at least, she could do for her.

"Will it ever stop hurting?" she asked quietly, when she had finally cried herself out.

"I don't know," Winnie answered honestly. "It still hasn't, for me."

"I'm glad you won't ever leave me, Mama."

"Never, Mae. Never in a million years."

* * *

Final author's note: I'm in the middle of major exams and papers, so the next one might not be up for a few weeks. (This one took a little longer than planned because my normal reader-person had the flu and couldn't look it over for me.) But I'm going to try to get a schedule of updates going so that there will be a new chapter, say, once every two weeks.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.


	15. Ch 14: Art, Love, and Drugs

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. Regarding reviews: they make me happy, but I'll keep writing this until it's finished whether you give me feedback or not. That being said, though, it's amazing how much faster I bother to update when I know people want to see more. And if you have specific questions or other uncertainties and mention them, then I can squeeze answers into the chapters…assuming that it's not something you're supposed to be confused about, or something I've already answered... :D

I'm terribly sorry for the ridiculous delay in posting this segment. There are loads of reasons, but I feel as though posting them will sound like excuses. To be brief, though, since the last time I posted a segment, I have moved to California from England, lost my great-uncle to his battle with cancer (he died), lost my mother and sister to paranoia and bipolar disorder (they've cut off contact with me), my brother to drug and alcohol addictions (he vanished – we don't know if he ran away or went to rehab or what), and begun my final year of university (which has brought a relapse of my panic-anxiety disorder). Needless to say, this all left me with little desire to write. Indeed, at times, I've had little desire to do much more than is necessary to keep breathing. I seem to have hit rock bottom, however, so things are beginning to look up again. Given this, however, I can't promise that there won't be additional delays in the future as I work with my psychologist on recovering from all of these events.

Anyway. We're somewhere around halfway with this story, and here's the next Jesse section. Enjoy.

* * *

August 30, 1948 – September 21, 1969

First day of school.

Absolute nightmare.

Jesse hadn't been in an academic building since he and Miles had stopped trekking through the snow to get to the one-room schoolhouse that used to stand at the site that Winnie's parents had flattened in order to build their luxury home when they first moved to Treegap. And that had been, what, over a century ago now?

Something like that. But the world was changing, and soon it would come to the point where you could no longer scrape by on a few years of book learning coupled with common sense and a serious dose of life experience. With the passage of the GI Bill guaranteeing veterans money for higher education, university was becoming the way of the future.

Besides, he and Miles needed something else to do with themselves, and university was probably the only thing they hadn't tried yet.

Being significantly older than their ostensible peers, they had little difficulty in convincing admissions boards that they were smarter than they were, and could have enrolled in any university they so chose. For all that, though, they didn't choose Ivy League schools.

Miles packed off for UC Berkeley in California, unsurprisingly to study agriculture, and Jesse headed to NYU in New York, major undecided, while Mae and Tuck saw them off proudly. They'd never, in all their long years, imagined that their sons would end up being university educated, and coming from the generation they did, they saw it as a huge privilege and step forward.

The boys were just glad to be moving on again. And, though they'd never admit it aloud, especially happy to have some time apart.

Jesse's course load was full of humanities and arts classes – literature, history, art history, philosophy, and studio art. He didn't want to do the hard sciences, and he figured that studying something he already knew, like Miles was doing, was fairly counterproductive.

His room was small and cramped, sparsely furnished, and vaguely reminiscent of a monastic cell. He unpacked quickly, and wandered down the hall to meet the other guys on the floor.

--

"Alright, everyone," the art professor said, walking into the room ten minutes late, "this is a practical, studio course. Copies of the syllabus are here, outlining all the projects and their due dates. If you have any questions, drop by my office hours."

Jesse was a bit confused. He had never been in a course this lax. Some of the other students looked a bit confused, as well. He grabbed a copy of the syllabus and flipped through it. The first day was just supposed to be housekeeping type stuff, followed by time for them to get started on the first project – still life drawings of pretty much anything they chose.

"Oh, man," two boys next to him said, looking ahead, "there're gonna be nude models for the figure drawing portion!"

Jesse rolled his eyes and pulled out a sketch pad. This class was deliberately disorganized, he had heard, in order to encourage all but those students most committed to keeping themselves on track to drop it. He watched the professor sit down at a desk with a roll sheet, casually calling out names as students set to work sketching out vague details of objects lying around the room.

--

"An art major? Jesse, what are you going to do with that?"

It was the end of August, and the boys had returned to the family home to spend some time together again before starting their second years at university. Mae and Tuck had acquiesced to Jesse's desires, but Miles was skeptical.

"What does it matter, Miles? We have to be careful to avoid notice, don't we? Nobody ever notices the art students. Not even the other art students."

Miles just raised an eyebrow skeptically.

The truth was simply that Jesse loved the art studios. It didn't matter what the project or the medium was, he would spend days with just himself and his tools, working to make every piece as close to perfect as possible. He was wrong, though, that nobody would ever notice him in the art department. His professors respected his work ethic, his peers were jealous of his apparent talent, and he was oblivious to it all.

--

"Alright, class," Professor Tomlin said, "the final project for this class: any medium, any size, anything you want. But it has to somehow represent "loss of innocence". Feel free to get as funky with it as you like, just please keep it tasteful and something we can put in the end-of-term student exhibition. Joseph, Lyndon, I'm looking at you two. If you test me on this, I will fail you."

Everyone chuckled at that – the two students named had gotten into a contest earlier that semester to see who could make the most shocking and controversial piece. The winner was whoever ended up getting censored first, and the bet was common knowledge at this point. Joseph and Lyndon grimaced and shrugged, trying to come up with some non-risqué piece to pull together on a theme that practically begged – to their minds at least – for eroticism.

All the other students except Jesse looked around at each other. So many options…it made them feel paralyzed.

Jesse felt paralyzed, but for very different reasons. His mind was full of images, but all of them boiled down into one idea.

--

"You know," Professor Tomlin said, his voice making Jesse jump to his feet, "although the studios are open 24 hours, we don't really intend for anyone to be here in the middle of the night. Relax, you're not in trouble. I just finished working on my research for the night, saw the light on while heading to my car, and thought I should make sure I hadn't forgotten to shut it off by accident." He paused, studying the young man hunched over a sketch pad, and gestured to a chair next to him. "Sit down, Jesse."

Jesse put his sketch pad down on a table and took the proffered chair.

"Do you ever sleep anymore?" the professor asked, concern etched into his affable features. "You look exhausted."

"I just want to do this piece justice," Jesse said, shrugging.

Professor Tomlin laughed. "Jesse, son, you could hand me a piece of notebook paper with a stick figure on it at this point, and it would be doing your piece justice. You're an amazingly talented young man. Normally I wouldn't tell you that; it tends to make for ego problems down the line when actually trying to sell your work if you think you're the next Michelangelo; believe me. However, I haven't seen work like yours from a student…pretty much ever in my forty years of instruction." He reached over and picked up Jesse's sketch book.

"Don't look! It's not right. It's not ready. Yet."

"That's my point, Jesse," Professor Tomlin said, examining the pencil sketch, "this is already the kind of piece half of your classmates would be proud to turn in as their final product." He frowned at the image. "Who are the models? I haven't seen either of the women, or the little girl before among our standard volunteers. And where did you find this landscape? It's stunning."

Jesse looked down at the sketch. It wasn't a simple composition, and it would be even less so when he finally set himself to painting it. He had structured it loosely like a timeline. At one end was little Christa, curiosity sparkling in her eyes, holding her porcelain doll and reading a book by candlelight while flowering trees were visible through a window behind her. In the middle, the largest of the three panels and the most vividly burned into Jesse's mind, Winnie dancing in her petticoat under the stars beside a bonfire, her hair flying wildly around her and her expression one of joyful abandon, while his Eiffel Tower rose up in the background toward the stars. Finally, at the other end, Catrin turned into a broken porcelain doll on the floor of a cabaret nightclub as fire raged all around her, and wintry tree branches could be seen clawing at the sky from a hole burned in the wall. There were other elements he was trying to figure out how to put in, ways of tying the three women together into some sort of narrative of his own loss of innocence, while at the same time keeping it open, vague, interpretable. He had been tempted to put Catrin in the middle, but the image of Winnie was so much more burned into his own soul, and he had to be true to that, if nothing else. He was weaving the whole thing together with motifs of flower and flame, and spiderwebbing cracks as though the whole thing were seen through an aged mirror into the past.

He wondered briefly if that wasn't how it really was. No answer was forthcoming.

"I dreamt it all. The women, the landscape," he said simply. _It's close enough to the truth. Maybe it was all just a dream. A terribly beautiful, entrancingly horrible dream…_

Professor Tomlin continued to scan the picture, frowning slightly in concentration. "Are those silhouettes of dancers in the smoke from the bonfire? And that's some pretty…um, _suggestive_ smoke in the panel with the broken doll woman, there."

Jesse nodded, having the grace to blush a little.

"So she's taken the final step and fallen from innocence in a way the other two haven't, and couldn't?"

"Something like that, I suppose. The little girl, she's young enough that she hasn't even stopped collecting dolls. She hasn't fallen in love. She's still completely innocent of how much the world can hurt. And the one…with the bonfire…" his breath caught in his throat, but he forced himself to speak. "She's just discovered her own freedom and independence and beauty. She's just fallen in love for the first time. It doesn't hurt yet. It's just beautiful."

"And the final woman?"

"She's had her heart broken, and reached a point of desperation. She had a desperate liaison with a desperate man who could never love her, and in the end, she died alone and afraid and without ever having experienced real love. She didn't so much lose her innocence, as have it robbed from her."

Professor Tomlin gave Jesse a long look, full of concern. Jesse knew that this wasn't the way any young man would normally talk; even the pretentious students who tried to give weighty meaning to their work never sounded so personally affected. But between the late hour and the heavy silence in the room, with the weight of his conscience bearing down on him, he found he couldn't repress the words anymore than he could the memories.

That was the other reason Jesse was an art major. Art was the only way he still had left to communicate the burning scar in his soul that still ached. Words couldn't encompass it, and even if they could, he wasn't allowed to share. But art spoke to everyone differently. Reaching out with it, Jesse wouldn't have to be alone. The only times he ever let himself feel anymore were in the seclusion of the empty art studio. He hadn't had time to prepare himself for this intrusion, so he was still raw and aching, and unable to care that it was obvious.

"Interesting that you chose to represent her as a broken doll. And the symbolic fire…curiosity, passion, and then…what? What is the fire that consumes the last one?"

Jesse shrugged, averting his eyes. _Guilt. Terror. Pain. Loss. All these and so much more._. "I don't think there's a word for anything that terrible."

"And the seasons!" Professor Tomlin breathed, talking more to himself than to Jesse, following the progression that the trees showed. "Springtime with youth…summer with love…winter with death… Jesse, this kind of symbolism is fantastic. And your execution… I can't wait to see the finished piece."

Jesse shrugged and waited while Professor Tomlin handed back his sketch, and then went to his desk to get whatever it was that he had come to the studio for, and then left.

"It will never be finished," he whispered into the still, cold air. "Not as long as I live."

He ripped the sketch into pieces, and burned them.

_Try again. Make it better this time._

--

When Jesse graduated, they put his work and the work of the other seniors in a museum for a two week exhibition. Even Miles came out to see it. Jesse was surprised, but at the same time humbled that his family would support him when they had opposed his choice originally.

The reunion would have been bittersweet regardless, after four years of Jesse refusing to visit any of them for fear of being buried under the oppressive weight of his own memories in a way other than that which he chose to experience them, but the art department had decided to give some of Jesse's work pride of place in the senior exhibit.

"What did you think you were doing painting that picture of Winnie?" Tuck demanded as he drove the family back to Jesse's home. "It was a dead ringer for the girl – what if somebody recognized it?"

"I don't know who you think could possibly recognize her," Jesse half-grumbled from the backseat. "It's been what, thirty-five years now, at least? She's a mother. Hell, she might well be a grandmother, seeing as her daughter's old enough to be getting married and having babies if she wants. 'Sides, no one's seen that Winnie but us. She was a different girl when she was with her parents."

"Jesse…" Tuck said, then sighed explosively.

"Relax, Angus," Mae said quietly, putting a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Jesse, son, your father's just worried. So am I, and so should you be. Winnie was a very well-connected young woman, and no matter how different she acted around us, she still looked the same. We just can't afford to get caught."

"Don't you two ever stop worrying?" Jesse asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Mae said, a tight, bitter smile touching her lips for an instant. "But it's because we care, Jesse, not because of anything else. We just want you to be happy."

Jesse didn't bother to reply. The irony hung in the air, thick as motor oil. Miles cleared his throat.

"I sense it's time we change the subject. So, Jesse, where are you heading next?"

--

Jesse Tuck had never been much of a planner. Most seventeen year olds aren't, and he was forever stuck as one without much incentive to grow out of the immature and irresponsible habits he had always entertained seeing as how his family would treat him the same no matter how much time passed.

It was 1956. Four years after graduation, and he still had nowhere to go where he truly felt at home. That would have to wait until he returned to Winnie. Forty years had passed since the Tucks had fled Treegap, and not a day had gone by when his feet weren't itching to return.

That first summer after his graduation, Tuck had sat down with him in the cute little suburban house he'd bought with Mae for a talk. Mae was asleep on the couch, and Miles was out for a walk when Tuck found Jesse standing on the back porch staring at the stars.

"What are you doing, son?"

"Nothing, Tuck. Just thinking."

Tuck nodded, lighting up a pipe, but said nothing. The smoke billowed around them both.

"I was thinking, Tuck…"

"No, Jesse."

"But you didn't even let me say anything!"

"I know what you were going to say. You can't go back to Treegap. Not yet. It's still too soon."

"It's been nearly forty years! What, does a millennium have to pass before you'll be satisfied?"

"Jesse. You promised me you wouldn't go back until I gave you permission. And I ain't giving you permission, until we can be sure that everyone who could possibly recognize us is gone. It's too dangerous."

"But there's no way they'd still be looking for us. Forty years…that's long enough for anyone to forget even their own mother's face!"

"Like you forgot Winnie's?

Jesse felt like he had been punched. He hadn't expected her to be brought into this.

"That…that's different, Tuck. You know that."

"We're still wanted for murder, son, whether or not anyone remembers. And I'm not willing to take the risk that people remember. Neither is Mae, nor Miles. If Winnie drunk the water like you think she's done, then she'll still be waiting for you either way. Least, it's not like she's got much choice in the matter at that point. But if she didn't…then you owe it to her to let her live her life as she sees fit. It's hard to be happy with your present with your past banging down your door. You know that as well as I do, at this point. If not better."

Jesse hadn't wanted to hear it, but Tuck had been right. He justified his continuing absence from Winnie's life by telling himself that he had to atone for the things he had done, to grow up and become someone she could love and respect, but doubt continually gnawed at him. Was she really waiting? How lonely must it be to hide all alone for several decades. At least he had had his family, however un-comforting they may have been at times.

He tried to put the thoughts out of his head, focus on his driving, but he had just seen a road sign indicating that Treegap was ten miles north of his exact location. How easy it would have been for him to make that turn and never look back, promise or no.

Jesse sighed heavily. The one thing he had left was his integrity. He wouldn't break his promises, no matter how much it killed him.

He turned his car south. Maybe he could find something mind-numbing in Alabama, or something. Anything had to be better than remaining in the northeastern portion of the country, so tantalizingly close to where Winnie still lived.

"As long as I don't get involved with anyone else," he told himself, "what's the worst that could happen?"

--

The small town Jesse found himself in was bubbling and boiling with some toxic venom in the community's bloodstream. Nobody would talk about it, but he sensed it in everyone's manner. There was a deep rift, and it was beyond him to get out of his own head long enough to find out about it. He tried inquiring at first, but nobody would answer his questions clearly.

He was content to not know. He got a job as a shopkeeper's assistant, selling clothes to worn-out looking matrons carrying babies on their hips and three or four other youngsters trailing behind them. They seemed to like him well enough – he was well-spoken, polite, knew how to tame a tantrum-throwing child, and always greeted them with a smile – and so most people seemed content to forget that he wasn't a local and had no history to speak of either good or bad.

He may as well have been the town's benignly loveable stray dog for all the notice he got.

But the town was seething. There was a vitriolic energy in the air that made his skin crawl and his heart yearn for the simplicity of life he had never really known, but could still convince himself must have existed a century ago.

And then the dams broke, and suddenly Jesse understood. All he'd needed to do was read a newspaper.

A man from a town downriver had been out walking his dog, and spotted three bodies washed ashore. They had clearly been brutally beaten to death. The suspected perpetrators were some men from Jesse's town, known for their membership in the KKK. The most damning evidence was that the three bodies belonged to black teenagers, and no motive other than race could be found. The seemingly benign townspeople Jesse had been chatting with and getting to know in that detached, neighborly way had known about this. They were trying to protect the men from going to prison, but amidst the increasing strength of the nascent Civil Rights movement, it was looking less and less likely that they would succeed.

--

Jesse was convinced that the world had exploded. First increasing reports of violence. Then he had actually witnessed the violence. His stomach still turned when thought about it; it was even worse than war. At least then there was some kind of obvious motive. He had seen too much to support hate for the sake of hate, even though he didn't know the words to articulate it. But he hadn't been courageous enough to stop it, and knowing that he had been complicit in that act for that reason, made him hate his environment all the more.

"Where can I go to?" he asked Miles on the phone one day. "Where can I go where people don't do such terrible things to each other for absolutely no reason? Where can I go where nobody hates?"

"There's only one place like that, little brother," Miles said in a voice heavy with weariness. "And we can't get there. It's called Heaven."

"What did we ever do that was so wrong, Miles? Why are we damned like this? It's not like that stream had a divine prohibition attached to it!"

"It did, Jess. It just wasn't written in flame or told to us by an angel with a sword. Men aren't supposed to live like we do. We're supposed to come with an expiration date, and cheating that – that's defying life itself. It's defying God. And you may not have noticed, but He doesn't take too well to that."

"You're not making me feel any better."

"I wasn't aware I was supposed to."

Jesse hung up. "God help me," he muttered.

--

In the end, he had to leave. He was tired of fighting battles that didn't seem to ever end. He was simply tired of fighting. He wanted to help, but that desire was no longer enough to make him actually help.

Last time it had been, his daughter had died. He still wasn't sure if it would have been better not to have known her, or if he was grateful he'd had that little bit of time with her, terrible thought it had been and painful though it still was.

He headed to New York next. Close enough to Ohio to race back to Treegap once he got word from Tuck; far enough away to feel like he wasn't compromising his honor. He got a loft apartment and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. For several years, he went to work, came home and ate dinner, then painted until his collapsed from exhaustion. He didn't know anybody, and he didn't communicate with his family either. He began to fancy himself something of a monk, making atonement and seeking redemption.

And then he met Nancy. Or Kimiko Sunbeam, as she was always called when she wasn't at work. She worked as a waitress at the restaurant where Jesse would often grab dinner on his way home from a shift working on one of the crews that maintain the subways in New York.

He was so focused on not being noticed that when she served him three nights in a row, he began to get ancy, and started trying to time his visits so that she would be busy. She picked up on it, and began trading tables with her fellow waitresses. It became something of a cat and mouse game for them both. One night, knowing it was her night off, Jesse slid into his usual seat with a sigh of relief that the game wouldn't continue.

And then she sat down beside him. He had only ever seen her in her work uniform with her hair pulled back into a severe bun, so he didn't recognize the exotically beautiful hippie woman who sat next to him at first, until she turned to look at him with a mischievous smile on her lips and said confidently, "I win. So you get to buy me dinner."

He was so flabbergasted, he did. And then she walked him home. By the time he stopped to think about what had happened and why, it was the next morning, and he was making her breakfast.

She didn't ask him his name until long after breakfast had been eaten and they'd ended up back in his bed.

"I don't have a name," he said, closing his eyes and rolling over onto his back. His tone was bitter. "I don't have a name, a soul, an identity. I just exist, and I destroy whatever I touch. I'll destroy you, if you give me half a chance."

Kimiko propped herself up on one elbow, the sheet falling away and exposing her to him, but she didn't pull it up. She wasn't ashamed, like Catrin had always been. She traced her fingers along his brow and nose, looking at him with a very strange expression on her face. Gently, she turned his face to hers.

"Then I'll give you a name," she said softly, and kissed him. "And I'll name you Shiva. And together we'll destroy what prevents the world from being created anew."

--

He hadn't intended or wanted to get involved with another woman, and certainly not one of the flower children. He tried to rationalize the fact that it had happened anyway in all kinds of ways, but was never able to. Eventually he simply stopped trying. _Don't screw this up, too_, he would tell himself every morning as he woke up beside her.

She was Japanese by heritage, but her parents and grandparents had never spoken the language with her, wanting her to learn English instead. She had adopted the name Kimiko when she joined up with the hippies – partly as a way to reconnect with the heritage she felt she had missed out on.

She wore her hair all the way down to her waist, with fresh flowers braided into it everyday. It made her look seventeen, though she was twenty. Jesse, who hadn't been much of a fan of the hippie look simply because his taste ran much more conservative (a funny side effect of being almost two centuries old, he supposed), suddenly found hippie style to be endlessly seductive. She introduced him to all of her friends – artists and musicians – and dragged him to political marches for equal rights and anti-war causes. She laughed easily, had an easy, comfortable manner with strangers, and liked debates and arguing (but preferred making up). She was strong and passionate, and helped him find those qualities in himself, making each day no longer a burden to be borne while waiting for Tuck to release him from his promise, but an adventure to be had and a treasure to enjoy.

It was so very different from his relationships with both Winnie and Catrin. He had needed – and still needed – Winnie, with a ferocity of depth that still took his breath away when he could summon up enough courage to face that need and think of her. Catrin had needed him with a quiet desperation, and had gone to her fiery grave with that need unsatisfied. Kimiko Sunbeam neither needed him nor wanted to be needed by him. (Apparently, that was part of 'The Patriarchy' – Jesse didn't know or care what that was, but it sounded ominous.) For the first time in his life, he was an equal partner in something, and it was exhilarating.

But if he'd thought the world was exploding, well, that was before Kimiko Sunbeam introduced him to drugs and he dropped acid the first time.

They were visiting friends of hers in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, all of them wearing flowers in their hair and passing more out to random passersby. They'd shared a bottle of wine over dinner, not even bothering with glasses, just passing it back and forth amongst themselves. Jesse was literally wearing a pair of rose-colored sunglasses, a gift from Kimiko's roommate, Orion, for the previous Christmas. He had decided Jesse needed a new, less "square" wardrobe and had taken it upon himself to re-outfit him. It had been almost a year, and Jesse was only just now getting used to the bellbottoms and tie-dyed T-shirts, fringed jackets and colorful sunglasses. His hair had grown out a bit, and every time he looked in the mirror he had to bite back a laugh at what Tuck and Mae would say if they could see him and his scraggly new beard. They'd sent a few letters, but his replies had been brief, and they'd apparently decided that he was neither pining away nor getting into too much trouble – if they only knew – and so had settled into a Christmas-and-Easter-only pattern of contact.

The glow of friendship and wine (mostly wine) had gone to Jesse's head. When Shamrock and Frog began passing a joint around, he partook as well. And then Candy got that mischievous grin on her face and ran out of the room, shouting back to them that she had something in her purse they just –had– to try. Amethyst Moonflower had been skeptical, saying that the last time she listened to Candy's ideas about what had to be tried, she'd gotten both Chlamydia and pregnant. Her baby, Star, was sleeping peacefully in a makeshift crib of Frog's empty sock drawer and a pile of folded up quilts. For some reason, Kimiko had found this incredibly amusing, and had been unable to stop laughing. Jesse hadn't understood, and just felt uncomfortably nagged by memories of memories.

So when Candy had returned with, not the Kama Sutra or sexual games, but a brightly colored tin holding several pills that she claimed would alter everyone's lives, he couldn't help but feel relieved.

Watching the wall melt and reform itself in a bright, Technicolor light-show that made his stomach want to turn, Jesse wondered just what about this he had thought would be a good idea. But, on second thought, it actually was kind of interesting, even fun…and who ever would have thought that his favorite flavor would turn out to be purple…oh, the things he was missing out on.

The trip took a turn, and Jesse felt his brain would explode.

The next morning, puking his guts up, he swore off drugs forever.

--

Of course that only lasted until Woodstock.

Kimiko knew someone on the planning committee. She also knew a couple of people who worked crew for some of the bands that were going to be playing. None of the huge names, but influential enough that when tickets were impossible to be had, she got them on guest lists and passes into supposedly VIP areas. Not that it ended up mattering once the actual show got started, but had it mattered, they would have been everywhere that mattered. It seemed Kimiko knew everyone, actually, especially once they arrived.

Assaulted by sound and color (and no small amount of secondhand marijuana smoke), Jesse's head was spinning long before he had a chance to deliberately ingest anything himself.

"Hey, babe," Kimiko said, grabbing his hand and leading him along to one of the stages, "this music is totally tons better if you try this first." She handed him a peculiar-looking dried mushroom.

"Dare I ask what it is?" he said, popping it in his mouth and washing it down with the cheap wine in the bottle he was holding. "Where have Shamrock and Frog gone?"

"Probably off to the woods," Kimiko whispered back, as though it were some scandalous secret, before bursting into a shower of giggles as the combined effect of cheap wine and magic mushrooms took her brain by storm.

"But I thought the woods were only for couples who wanted to…"

She gave him a wide-eyed look like he was some kind of alien. "Shamrock and Frog _are_ a couple," she said, then giggled again at his expression. He knew he was slightly agape.

"But they're both…both men…and I've seen them with girls before…"

"That doesn't mean anything in this group, you know that. And when did you get to be such a prude? You sound like my parents," Kimiko replied, curling up around him.

"Well, I was born two centuries ago…I could be your parents grandparents," Jesse said, the effects of the drugs and alcohol loosening his tongue.

Kimiko kissed him. "I wouldn't be surprised if that were really true, old man Shiva."

--

She came to him, her face a mask of seriousness. That was a surprise – she had always come to him laughing before that.

"Shiva, we have to talk," she said, sitting down on the couch.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" he asked in a singsong voice, taking the shrieking tea kettle off of the stove. "You've found somebody else?"

Kimiko looked startled. "How did you guess?"

Jesse shrugged. "We're all adults here. And what we've shared hasn't exactly been exclusive, now, has it? Both of us have been involved with…others…in the group. Like that night you and Orion…"

"Or the time you and Ruby June," Kimiko said, a smile creeping onto her face. "I'm so glad you're not going to make this a dramatic mess. Makes this so much easier."

Jesse shrugged again. "What's the point? Dramatic messes don't change reality. And the reality is, if you've found someone else, you're going to go with him."

"Her."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I… It's Candy."

"She always was the exploratory type."

"Yeah. Like that time she dragged you and Coyote off into a closet and tried to make you…"

"Yeah. Didn't work. Coyote's a nice person and all, but I just don't…"

"I didn't think I did either," Kimiko said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Maybe next time you find yourself alone with Coyote, you could try it."

"And when am I ever going to find myself alone with Coyote again?" Jesse pointed out. "Your friends are fun, and I do like them, but I was only ever there on their tolerance for our – relationship, friendship, liaison – whatever this was?"

"Fun," Kimiko said with that mischievous smile back in full force. "This was fun. You needed some fun, and I provided. I could tell from the time I first saw you."

"Is that why you chased me around that diner?"

"No. I chased you because your heart was broken. You looked so sad. Fit to die, actually." The mischievous smile disappeared. She stood and walked over to where he was standing, and brushed his hair out of his eyes in a surprisingly tender gesture. "Your heart isn't broken anymore, Shiva. I'm glad."

"You did that," Jesse said, surprised by the realization but knowing it was true. "Thank you.

"No, don't thank me. I didn't do that, you did. You just needed to see that there was a way to get over it."

"Either way. You helped."

"I'm glad I helped, and I'm glad you don't think you're broken anymore. What we had was good times, babe. I'm almost sad to see it go."

Jesse was only slightly tempted to say 'so don't.' But instead, he answered with, "But its time to go has come. I won't forget you Nancy Kimiko Sunbeam Whatever-your-last-name-is."

"Ugh, for the last time, don't call me Nancy!" she protested, wrinkling her nose at him.

"Literally."

She kissed him, one last time, and Jesse was surprised to find that her lips tasted like salt and there were tears falling onto his cheeks. He wasn't sure if he or she was the source. And then she was gone.

In the end, he was amazed by how much it didn't bother him.

At how much existence itself didn't bother him.

_Maybe Kimiko was good for me after all_, he reflected that night. _Who ever would have thought a flower child would be able to teach someone with two centuries of life about living…_

--

Jesse decided to go back to living with his family, while he was sitting in the barber's chair, getting his long hippie locks cut off. The beard had been the first thing to go. He had never much liked shaving, but the beard was way worse – biological seventeen year olds just weren't meant to attempt serious facial hair.

He missed Mae and Tuck. He even missed Miles.

And he couldn't wait to show them that he was almost whole again. That he could be whole, once he had Winnie back. That the idea of a future held promise for him once again. He grinned as he paid the barber, and practically bounced out of the shop on his way out the door.

_Maybe I should hook Miles up with a flower child…Amethyst Moonflower, perhaps; he'd like her. Or Clover Rose…except he'd never go for it. See it as immoral, probably… Shame._

Still, there would be time enough to convince Miles to find some way to heal himself. Maybe now that Jesse had shown it possible, things could begin to look up for the Tuck family once more.

Whistling, Jesse headed home to pack.

* * *

FINAL NOTE: Please do note that this in no way advocates for drug use or casual sex. Nor does it condemn them. I'm very much a live-and-let-live type of person.

I wanted Jesse to interact in some capacity with the major movements of the 1960's – the Civil Rights movement (which is mostly alluded to here; lest we forget, given his age he would be of a group that probably wouldn't see much wrong with racism, so I felt that having him feel sympathy for a perpetual outsider group was about as far as I could realistically push the character), and the counterculture movement (aka Hippies), which seemed much more like something he would do.

Mainly, this is because it was a widespread youth movement advocating for peace and love. Jesse has seen way too much of the atrocities mankind can inflict to not support the cause of peace, and of course he's obsessed with his first love, Winnie. However, if interacting with hippies, one would be exposed to the drug culture and "free love" movement that were so much a part of the hippie experience.

Jesse's experiences with drugs are essentially neutral, mainly because while I don't endorse them, I don't see them as things requiring condemnation in all circumstances, either. Plenty of people in our parents' generation used them and turned out fine, and plenty of people have negative encounters as well. I don't want to get into a drug use debate in fanfic, it's already far too intense in real life.

As for "free love" and casual sex (and Kimiko Sunbeam), well. Honestly? I wanted to give Jesse a relationship that didn't suck. While I totally ship him and Winnie (and believe me, we're getting to the point where stuff will actually start happening with that), if they were real people, their story would actually be quite unhealthy. As for Catrin, she was a victim of the times/her circumstances, which were also to illustrate historical points and add texture to the narrative fabric. Jesse needed to do a lot of growing up – which Catrin provided, albeit in a totally tragic and emo-inducing way – but he also doesn't deserve to be completely damaged. Plus, people grow. Usually it's because a new experience forces us to, no matter how much we may just want to crawl into a hole and die (I have personal experience of that, actually). My feeling on the matter was that Kimiko Sunbeam is an empowered woman who would force Jesse to rise to the occasion, and in my pages of background notes about what would have happened between them (most of which wasn't included because I couldn't narratively structure it in a way that I felt was helpful to the overall story without adding far too much length) she does exactly that, by challenging him on everything and forcing him to come into his own. (Curious: After I finish this story, would anyone want me to post up additional chapters covering some of the material I didn't include, like Jesse and Kimiko's relationship, or would that be something that people probably wouldn't read or care about?)

So the real reason Jesse recovers is simply that his horizon has been expanded outside his little pain-filled circle. Yes, part of that expanded horizon is drug use and casual sex, but no, it's not the important part. The important part is the personal challenge.

Also, thank you for being so patient. As I noted at the beginning, things have been insane. Once I got out of "just survive" mode, this is the first thing I began working on again, because I really do want to finish this story for all of us. I appreciate all of the comments, reviews, and fave-story adds I get, and I just wanted to send this shout-out to you guys for it. Thanks so much!


	16. Ch 15: Love, Life, and Loss

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from _Tuck Everlasting_. I do, however, own the plotline that my brain has invented for them here, and any OC's I needed to introduce to move the plot along.

Notes: See first section for overarching notes. We're just over halfway through this story now, and hopefully, assuming things don't crash again, we should be able to finish this up by Christmastime, at which point I'll put up some of the extra scenes that haven't made it into this as a Christmas gift. :)

* * *

January 3, 1948 – March 2, 1970

Winnie looked up sharply from her knitting. "One of the girls is crying," she said to Mae, who was sitting on the couch staring absently at the fire. A book lay open in her lap, but she hadn't turned a page in over twenty minutes. "Mae? Darling, one of your daughters is crying."

Mae still didn't respond. Winnie sighed and got up to go check on her granddaughters. "Hello, my darlings," she said as she entered the nursery where, so many years ago, Mae had played with her own dolls. Alice was cheerfully knocking one of her dolls' heads against her crib and babbling in her two-year-old gibberish, while Lillian was crying because she had dropped her favorite doll through the bars of her crib and couldn't reach to pick her up.

"Aww, sweetie," Winnie said quietly, handing her granddaughter the raggedy cloth creation. "Try to be more careful, okay?" Lillian giggled and went back to playing quietly. Winnie stood and watched them for a moment, then sighed and pulled back the curtain on the window. The wind was blowing gently through the trees of Treegap wood, and the sun was bright. Clean, fresh snow covered the ground. A sad smile crept across Winnie's face. What fun they should all be having… What fun she would be having if Jesse had come back for her…

Her smile twisted bitterly. Forty years and counting – how long would he make her wait?

A dark corner of her mind whispered treacherously that perhaps he would never come back. Perhaps he hadn't really loved her. Perhaps he had found someone better…

"Enough!" she hissed, banishing the thoughts from her mind and turning back to her granddaughters. "I made a promise, baby girls, and I intend to keep it – isn't that right?"

"What promise, Nana?" Thomas Jr. asked. Winnie jumped slightly. She hadn't seen her grandson in the corner, reading his picture book and playing with his toy soldiers, when she had come in.

She smiled at him. "I promised the faerie queen that I would keep this forest safe for her, so that no matter what happens, the world will still have one magical place left. There's real magic in that forest, and the world can't lose that, no matter how skeptical we become, or how dangerous magic can be."

Thomas looked at her skeptically. "Really, Nana? But Mama told us that faeries and magic don't exist!"

Winnie sighed. "Your Mama is having a very hard time in her life right now, Tommy. She misses your Papa terribly. It makes it hard for her to believe in anything."

"But he's in Heaven, right?"

_I hope so._ "Of course, sweetie."

"So she'll see him again, right?"

"One day."

"Then she hasn't lost him forever?"

"Of course not."

"Then why does she say she has? Is that why she's so sad? Because she thinks she'll never see him again? Doesn't Mama know about Heaven?"

Winnie was taken aback by her eldest grandchild's precocity.

"You're far too clever, sweetie," she said. "Why don't you read your book, and leave your Mama up to me?"

"Okay, Nana."

Winnie headed back into the living room, where Mae still hadn't moved. Suddenly she felt a pang of sympathy for her own mother, dead several years now, who had always seemed so distant from Winnie when she was feeling the pain of loss. Now Winnie understood that it had been she who was distant.

Winnie put her hand firmly on Mae's shoulder. Mae jumped. "Mae, darling, you can't keep living like this. I know it's hard, but you have four children who need their mother. And a fifth on the way!"

Mae shrugged off Winnie's hand and retreated further inside of herself. Winnie recognized the action. Mae didn't want to be helped right now. She just wanted to be left alone to mourn.

--

Mae came out of her grief-shell enough to begin planning Tommy a party for his fifth birthday. All the children in the neighborhood were invited, and, by extension, so were their parents. The thought of this made Winnie nervous.

"So just don't come!" Mae finally shouted at her in exasperation, while the kids were playing upstairs in the attic. They were going over party details, and Winnie had expressed anxiety that someone might see through her disguise. "Keep your damnable secret by not showing up at your grandson's birthday party, or think of some other way to keep up the batty grandmother act! This last year has been ruined badly enough without their birthdays going to hell, hasn't it?"

Winnie sat down hard. The idea of missing her grandson's birthday wasn't one she had entertained, but now that Mae had mentioned it…

"There has to be some other way!" she protested.

"Then find it, Mother, because I'm tired of all the hiding this family does! I'm tired of mourning, of grief, of loneliness and secrecy! I've finally accepted that I'll never stop missing Thomas, so I'm trying to get back into the life of the community. Have you accepted that you may never see Jesse again? Has that thought even crossed your mind? And what are you going to do about it if he never does? Right now you're trapped, hiding out here, afraid to be recognized, and what kind of life is that, Mother? How do you even know he hasn't come back to Treegap for you, anyway, if you never even leave this damnable house?! I can see why you hated it as a girl. It's like a prison sometimes."

Winnie was so stunned she could do nothing but blink at Mae. The thought that Jesse wouldn't return had begun to cross her mind months ago, but she still couldn't decide on what to do about it. Mae's words had hit her like a blow to the face, leaving her literally gasping for air.

"I think it's best if I leave," Winnie whispered finally as the light came on in her brain. "I don't belong here anymore."

"Oh, Mother, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way! Don't go- Mama-"

"I think you misunderstand. It's best if I leave, but _I _won't leave." Mae's face only registered confusion. "I, Winifred Annette Foster-Jackson, have decided that in my golden years, I'm going to travel. To see the world," she said in a grand tone, "but _I,_ Winnie, your mother, am going to stay right here with you. We'll put it about that I'm going away – to Europe… France, maybe, or some such, I always did want to travel! – because I realize that life is short and we never know when our time comes. And then I'll pretend to be a school-friend or a cousin of yours, come to visit, who will decide ever-so-kindly to stay and help you with the children until you're back on your feet. No more hiding. No more locking myself away inside this house. You're right, Mae. If Jesse isn't going to come back for me, I have to have a plan of some kind."

"I didn't mean he wouldn't…"

"I didn't either. But that doesn't mean I don't still need a plan."

"You don't think anyone won't recognize you without all the makeup?"

"Heavens, Mae, no! All the people who would have known me as a girl have moved on – either moved away or died, or were never here to begin with. And as you've so aptly pointed out, I've become rather a hermit in my 'old age', fit only as a subject of passing curiosity when gossip grows thin in this community. And if someone notices a striking resemblance…well, I will be pretending to be one of your cousins, won't I? Family resemblance isn't so strange as all that."

"You didn't have any siblings," Mae pointed out.

"I had cousins. People always did think Marie and I were sisters. Poor dear passed away years ago, some dreadful accident in a boat with her husband and son."

"Did Marie have a daughter?"

"She does now. And since the rest of that family is gone, there's nobody to gainsay us, now is there?"

"Mama, you're too clever by half."

"And where did you think your son got it? He certainly didn't pick it up off the ground!"

--

"Well, it certainly is lovely to meet you, Claudette," one of the mothers at Tommy's birthday party said to Winnie. "It's so kind of you to come help poor Mae out – four children, and a fifth on the way with no husband…and her mother just up and leaves, just like that! I can't even begin to imagine. Can you?" She started to laugh as Winnie stared at her. "Oh, what an absurd question! Of course you can. So tell me, where are you from again?"

The party was going off without a hitch, and nobody had even given Winnie so much as a second glance. Not even her grandchildren had questioned the departure of Nana and the same day's arrival of Auntie Claudie. She wondered what that said about her importance in their lives, but then decided that they'd had little exposure to subterfuge and camouflage, and had no reason to assume that Mama and Nana were engaging in it.

She felt bizarrely exposed. The feeling wasn't all that unlike going without a jacket for the first time after winter ended. She kept expecting to find that she was unprepared for the weather – except in this case, it was more the social climate than the meteorological one she was concerned about.

The kids were tumbling around, playing tag and giggling as Thomas' new puppy tried to get in on the game.

"A puppy? Really, Mae?" she had said when she came downstairs to see her daughter tying a bright green ribbon to the dog's collar. "Are you sure he's responsible enough to be caring for another living creature?"

"I think it'll be fine, Claudette, so don't worry," Mae had answered, pointedly using Winnie's old name as a reminder to not behave too much like a mother. Since she had frozen herself in time as a 24 year old, she needed to behave accordingly, especially since her alter ego had not yet been married. It was strange remembering that, since Mae had recently turned 28, she was supposed to be younger than her own daughter.

But she had slipped into the role amazingly easily, surrounded by all these young matrons and their varyingly well-behaved children. So much so that she was finding herself surprised that she had lived without human contact like this for so long.

--

"Mama?" Mae called, her voice strained and anxious.

"Yes, Mae?"

"The baby's coming!"

Winnie sighed. She had known it would be soon, but had hoped it would be a while longer yet. Mae was still hovering on the darker side of the line between hope and despair from losing her husband, and she knew that the arrival of his last child would make dragging her back into hope no easier.

"I'll call for the doctor!" she shouted back.

In the end, there wasn't enough time for the doctor to make it. Thomas Smith's last child, a son, was born on May 27, 1948. Mae named him Jesse Alexander Smith, and Winnie was taken aback.

"Why?" she asked, after the doctor had come and checked to make sure that both mother and son were healthy.

"Because Alexander Jesse didn't have the same ring to it?" she said weakly.

"But why those names?" Winnie asked, taking her newest grandchild from Mae so that she could shift into a more comfortable position and get some rest.

"We named Tommy after his daddy, and Jonny after his grandfather. I wanted to name this one after his other grandfathers – my papa, and the man who would have been my papa if you'd had more of a choice in the matter."

"That's just the exhaustion talking, sweetie," Winnie said, smiling as tears came to her eyes.

"Even so," Mae said, closing her eyes to take a nap. "The name means a lot to us both."

--

The headlines were terrifying. Everywhere anyone looked, the polio outbreak was ample evidence that there is little more fragile than a human life.

"Oh, Claudie, what are we going to do?" Mae fretted, pacing back and forth. "We can't keep the kids out of playgroup or school, I won't have them isolated, but I'm so scared that they'll catch it!"

Winnie sighed. "Unfortunately, illnesses are part of childhood. If we're lucky, we survive them."

"How can you be so cavalier about this?"

"I'm not, Mae. I've had these exact same anxieties myself, over you. In the end, the answer is always the same: what will be, will be. Maybe they'll invent a vaccination for it. Wouldn't that be nice? Until then, just sit back, and pray that your children escape it this time."

--

"I don't wanna get a shot!" Jesse protested loudly, as Winnie and Mae tried to get him to stop struggling.

"It's to keep you healthy!" Winnie said. "You don't want to get sick, like the Waverly kids have, do you?"

"Well…of course not, Auntie Claudie, but I don't want to get a shot either!"

"It's just one little poke in the arm, sweetie, and then it's all over!" Mae cajoled. "Come on, be a brave man for Mama. Your daddy was never afraid of shots."

"I'm not afraid," Jesse said stubbornly, his protests subsiding as he crossed his little arms over his chest. "I just don't want to get a shot!"

"We know," Winnie said with a grin. "But be a brave little man, and then we'll take you for ice cream, okay?"

"Promise?" he asked, looking skeptically at his mother.

"Promise," Mae affirmed.

"Well…okay, but just this once!" he warned.

Winnie laughed. _One down, four to go. Hopefully they'll all be so easy. Still, thank god for the polio vaccine; I think we would just die if any of the kids ended up like poor Betty Waverly, trapped in an iron lung for the rest of her life. If you can even call it a life._

--

The whispers were starting. Mae had heard a few of them, and Winnie had heard more.

"_That Claudette girl seems to be ageless!" "She hasn't aged a day!" "Wonder what her secret to looking so young is?" "It ain't right for a woman to be so well-preserved, helping raise five kids like that!"_

"I get the feeling it's time for me to be moving on soon," Winnie said finally, one Saturday over lunch while the kids were out playing. "People are beginning to take notice."

"But what about helping me with the kids! Tom's just about to turn 15, true, but Jesse's only 10, and he's very attached to you. I don't think I can do this without you."

"Mae, Claudette showed up in 1948 as a 24 year old woman. It's 1958, and I'm still a 24 year old woman. I should get out of here before the whispers get to be murmurs, or worse, a full-on clamor. I can't go back to hiding in my room, either. It's like Grandmother said," she mused to herself, "nothing stops a person from living faster than living forever. If I stay here, I'll just get trapped into the same cycle of endless days. Little Jesse might be very attached to me, but he's more attached to his brothers. And Tom and Jon are turning out to be upstanding young men, they'll lead by example better than almost anyone else could. Guess the troublemaking Thomas did doesn't run in the family."

"You never could let that go, could you?" Mae asked, a wry smile on her face. "Would it make a difference if I told you he never meant anything bad by it?"

"Of course not. I'm your mother. I'm supposed to harshly judge every man you parade across my view." The two women laughed at that.

"…telling you, they cheated!" Jon said, as the door to the living room swung open.

"You can't cheat at cops and robbers!" little Jesse said. "Right, Tom? Right?"

"Mom, Aunt Claudie, we're home!" Tom shouted through the open door into the kitchen. "And yeah, this time Jesse's right."

Mae started laughing again. Winnie got to her feet and went into the living room.

"And how are my crazy nephews this afternoon?" she said cheerfully. "Being cheated by robbers?"

"No, we were the robbers," Tom said as he threw his BB gun down onto the couch while his brothers unloaded themselves as well. "And Jon's just sore because the cops outsmarted us for the first time ever."

"And how did they manage that, my fine, feathered felons?" Mae asked, bringing in a plate of cookies.

"They listened in on our planning," Jon said, taking the largest one off the top. "Which, in my book, is called cheating."

"Except that if you're talking where they can overhear, it's called being practical, and is perfectly allowable in real life," Winnie pointed out.

"Even when they get people who aren't involved in the game to help them overhear? And then gang up on us?"

"Ah, that's just an example of all being fair in love and war," Mae said. She handed her sons another cookie each, then took the plate back into the kitchen.

"Is everything really fair in love and war, Aunt Claudie?" little Jesse asked.

"Depends on who you ask. Different people play by different rules. Boys, I have to tell you something."

"Is it a secret?!" Jesse burst out. Winnie smiled indulgently at him. He really was a dear boy.

"Sadly, no. While I love you all dearly and love being here, it's time for me to move on. I'm leaving to go traveling in a few days. I promise I'll write often, and send lots of presents for you and your sisters."

"Where are you going to go?" Tom asked.

"Wherever the wind takes me."

--

"How can you leave me like this?" Mae asked quietly. Winnie looked up to see her daughter standing at the top of the stairs. The rest of the house was quiet in the pre-dawn morning; it was the only time the house was ever quiet. "Weren't you going to say goodbye?"

"Goodbyes just make things unnecessarily difficult, Mae, trust me."

"For who? For you, or for us?"

"For all of us."

"So you're really leaving then? You're really going to up and go?"

"There's nothing left for me here, Mae, you know that. I'm trapped in this small town."

"You'll be trapped even in the biggest of big cities as long as you wear that face."

"All the more reason why I have to go."

"But you don't have to! You could stay! Mama, please-"

"Mae, you'll be fine. You're a grown woman. Your children are growing up beautifully, you effectively own this home and everything in it, you have access to all of my family's money and all of the Smith family's fortune – you have family, security; what could you possibly want for?"

"A friend. There's nobody in the world who I can talk to like I can talk to you. You've always been here for me, even when I hated you for it. I don't know how to manage anything on my own – you've always taken care of all the details. How am I going to do this?"

"The same way you always have. One day at a time. I'm not going anywhere so far away you won't be able to reach me."

"By letters and telegrams, maybe by phone! And only if I can keep up with your ever-changing litany of pseudonyms."

"Mae, I will always make sure you know how to find me. I have no intention of leaving you and the kids behind. Just because I'm geographically far away doesn't have to mean anything."

"Mama-"

"My mind is made up, Mae. I'm going now." She kissed her daughter's forehead. "Goodbye, darling. I'll write when I find a place to settle for a while."

--

Winnie headed west. It seemed like everyone else had been to the Pacific Coast, and she had never quite made it the last time she'd been out on her own. And now seemed as good a time as any for a young woman like herself to be making her way to California – the recent rising of the hippie movement meant that young people were trekking their way to San Francisco every day. Winnie had never seen San Francisco. It sounded like it could be fun, if only to watch and see what everyone else was up to.

She had never in her life felt so old, she realized, upon her arrival. Or maybe it was just her generation? She saw all the young men and women with their long hair and jeans, going to bed with each other casually, drinking and taking drugs, and all she could feel was revulsion.

_How can they do this? Don't they realize what they're giving away so casually?_

She couldn't deny that she was fascinated by it, but after the third time refusing a proposition from a young hippie man, she was getting annoyed.

"At least Jesse and Miles had more sense of propriety than this!" she muttered to herself as she found herself a place to stay in the Haight-Ashbury district. All of her neighbors were hippies, and the seventeen year old down the hall was clearly pregnant, which made Winnie cringe slightly, but it was the most affordable place she could find.

_Maybe I've just been sheltered,_ she wrote to Mae, _but all of this seems so strange and foreign to me! If these people all knew that I could be their (grand)mother, I wonder if they would still invite me so cavalierly to go home with them. _

It didn't take all that long for her to adjust, though, and once she did, she decided she could stand to stay a few years.

--

Winnie eagerly ripped the envelope open before she even got inside the door. She couldn't wait for news of her family.

_June 19, 1961_

_Dearest Claudie, _Mae's letter read – she no longer addressed her as 'Mama' in these letters, in case someone were to intercept and read one and wonder why a middle-aged woman with grown children was addressing a younger woman that way; same went for keeping the pseudonym of Claudette in case anyone who remembered the erstwhile aunt should come to read one – _You should see what your nieces and nephews are getting up to! I'm up to my ears in alligators with the lot of them, and can't help but think that maybe if you hadn't gone away, I'd be having an easier time of it – not to make you feel terribly. I hope you're enjoying your adventures to exotic locales! I'm certainly still envious of your ability to pick up and fly to Italy on a whim. (Still, I can't help but hope that blood-sucking insects in San Francisco have a right picnic at your expense!)_

_Anyway, as I was saying. Tom has been drafted into the military. He leaves to fight in Vietnam next week. I'm terribly worried for him, and have to fight myself not to burst into tears and smother him every time I look at him. He's become quite the sober young man – as you expected, he graduated with top grades and honors from his high school class. He also bears such a striking resemblance to his father that it makes my heart ache. He's a good boy – he asks about your adventures quite often. It would seem you made quite the impression! Just the other day, I was showing him the photographs you took of Venice, and he remarked on how he would like to travel with you someday. _

_Jon will be graduating next June, as you know. He's developed quite the mischievous streak. He's also apparently quite the ladies' man, if some of the outraged and irritated remarks I've received from some of the mothers of the local girls are to be believed. I don't believe the half of what they tell me, since most of them never liked us anyway, but the rest of it is quite fascinating. Why, apparently last Friday, he took Jenny Winters out on a date, and while he was leaning in to kiss her goodnight, Alice London spotted him and began shrieking about how he was supposed to be her boyfriend. It's caused quite the stir – which of course just shows how tragically boring Treegap is and always has been. I've been considering a trip up to Rochester with the kids, to see how Mr. Smith is doing, and to show the kids where their father grew up, but I'm afraid the memories will be too overwhelming._

_The girls are as different as night and day – but of course, they always were. Lillian has decided she's one of those 'hippie' girls, and has grown her hair down past her waist and strung beads throughout it. As long as she doesn't start demanding I call her Kitty Moonshine, or some such nonsense, or take up causal romantic attachments with any male to look twice at her, I think I can handle it. But only just barely. The tie-died clothing those kids like is so garish. Fortunately, she's got some taste about it – mostly flowered skirts and billowy blouses. None of the miniskirts or other nonsense that's so popular with the age group these days. As for Alice, she's quite studious and sensible, and is apparently dating Robert Isles. I can't say as I entirely approve (I absolutely detest his mother!) but he seems like a nice enough boy, and has been nothing but respectful when he comes to visit. Tom and Jon have told me (confidentially, of course) that they intend to have a 'talk' with Robert about the appropriate way to treat their sister, just in case. I told them to behave and mind their own business. Makes me so glad I never had an older brother to be meddling and overprotective!_

_And then there's little Jesse, who isn't so little anymore. He's grown to be six feet tall – easily the tallest of the bunch – and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. He's taken up art and music; even though he still follows his older brothers around like a lost puppy, he hasn't noticed girls yet, although they've clearly started noticing him. He's come home with brownies or cookies from a different girl everyday this week. I asked him why they do this, and he's decided in that implacable male brain of his that it's in exchange for the pictures he draws. I'm torn between, on the one hand, explaining that they're flirting with him and he's leading them on, and on the other hand, letting him continue on unawares because of how adorably charming it is to me as his mother (although, doubtlessly, those girls would see it rather differently). _

_Sadie had a litter of puppies last week, six in total. Half are male, and half are female. I'm trying to find good homes for them, but the kids all want to keep them. It's enough to make any woman mad! _

_I hope this finds you well, and that you're enjoying all the best that life has to offer. I still miss you terribly! With all my love,_

_Mae_

_PS – Still no sign?_

Winnie sighed, re-reading the letter over and over again. She could picture all of it perfectly. 18 year-old Tom, looking proud and serious at the same time in his new uniform, Jon flirting with the local girls and raising hell. That Lillian had decided she was a hippie was more difficult to envision, but not entirely unexpected given the girl's contrary disposition. Alice had always been studious and focused, but Winnie could still easily picture her with a boyfriend. And little Jesse not understanding the rules of flirtation was absolutely no surprise at all.

_Not even my Jesse and I really understood what we were playing with, in hindsight._ She sighed again. If Mae was asking if Winnie still had found no sign of the Tucks, then it meant that she herself had had no sign.

She settled herself down at her desk to write a reply.

--

"Can I help you with your bag, ma'am?" someone called, as Winnie struggled to balance an overflowing bag of groceries on one arm while she dug around in her purse for her keys.

"Huh? What? Oh, no thank you, I think I can manage on my own," Winnie said, surprised to be addressed as such by one of the hippie men swarming throughout San Francisco these days. "That's very kind of you, though."

"I guess you could say my mother taught me well," he answered, with a grin. "I'm Frodo." Winnie fought to suppress a giggle. The names these hippies were coming up with! "What's your name?"

She paused for a long moment, debating how to answer. _Should I be Claudette, or Winnie, or something else entirely? _

In the end, she went with the truth – she'd never remember a pseudonym anyway.

"I'm Winnie," she said simply.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Winnie," Frodo said. "I'd shake your hand, but it looks like they're both a bit full. Say, would you like to go grab dinner sometime?"

Winnie gave him a once-over, then a twice-over. _Hell, girl, it's just dinner. It's not like a marriage proposal, and besides…you accepted one of those once that wasn't from Jesse._

_Yeah, but look how well that turned out._

_Still. It's just dinner. And he's kind of cute._

"Maybe."

"How about Friday night? I'll pick you up?"

Winnie couldn't resist the giggle. "You're keen," she observed. "Sure. How about around 7?"

--

In the end, Winnie should have realized she wasn't the dating type, especially not in the hippie scene. Frodo had been nice enough, but he had also wanted to move faster than she was even remotely comfortable with.

Besides, she was here to bide some time, and – somehow – look for hints of the Tucks' whereabouts, not take up dating and flirting as a hobby.

She was tired of living in this building anyway. Her neighbors smoked so much marijuana that the smell filled up her apartment. She began looking for a new location. There had to be something more suitable. In a few months, she had moved apartment buildings to a studio flat. All of her neighbors were still hippies, but the ones on her floor, at least, were slightly more considerate.

--

PRESIDENT KENNEDY ASSASSINATED.

Winnie couldn't bring herself to read much more than the headlines. She had seen it, of course. They all had. It had been broadcast across national television. Everywhere she looked she could see it written plainly in people's faces: _This wasn't supposed to happen._

And with the country embroiled in a war, it seemed like a bad omen.

"So they kill presidents now," she muttered to herself. It made the world seem much less safe. She found herself longing to return home to see her daughter and grandchildren.

_But I can't. Not yet. It's still too soon._

--

_September 13, 1965_

_Dearest Claudie,_ the tear-stained note read,

_I don't even know where to begin to tell you what's happened. Every time I so much as think about it, I break down sobbing. _

_Tommy died in Vietnam. I can't get any details about what happened; apparently, he was on a classified mission, and something went wrong. They got spotted, or a bomb went off when it wasn't supposed to – I'm left with my mind conjuring up these terrible scenes. They've tried to tell me that it happened quickly and he wouldn't have felt any pain, but I think these are empty condolences, or else why wouldn't they tell me how my son died? They wouldn't even let me look in the coffin they sent him home in. We had to have a closed-coffin funeral because they said so – I couldn't even see my baby to say goodbye._

_My son died, Claudie. How does a woman even begin to move on from that?_

_It was terrible enough losing Thomas. I thought I would never recover from that, I loved him so deeply. But I understood. He was never right after he returned from The War. He was always so sick, and the loss of his limbs changed him. But my Tommy…my baby… A mother should never outlive her children. Never. It violates the very laws of nature._

_Jonathan is also sick – not my son Jonathan, but my father-in-law. He keeps asking after my mother, saying he has something he needs to tell her. He won't tell me, he says it's a secret, but he needs to tell her before he dies. This talk is scaring me – I don't know if I can handle another death in the family. Not alone. I miss having you to rely on, Claudie. Please come home._

_Our home is in chaos, and I need you here now more than I ever have since Thomas passed. With Tommy gone, Jonny _and _Jesse are acting up. They've dropped out of school, they've taken to going to protests, they've even burned their draft cards in the town square and incited a riot in Treegap of other young men who refuse to go should they be called. It's madness and insanity and my heart is breaking. I don't even recognize the world we live in anymore._

_Claudie, come home._

_Mae_

--

"Mae! Mae, I'm home! Mae!"

"Oh, Mama!" Mae whispered, before bursting into tears and throwing herself into Winnie's arms. "You came home."

"Of course I did, darling. I couldn't leave you alone now," Winnie said, allowing herself to cry and not caring what she looked like after. "Not with things like this."

"What do I do, Mama?"

"Stop calling me Mama. I'm Claudie, now, remember?" Winnie said, brushing her daughter's hair out of her face. "And everything's going to be okay. You'll get through this, like you've gotten through everything else."

"I outlived my baby…Claudie…"

"I know, darling. I know it's hard." _I'm terrified of it, myself. _

"And the boys…and Mr. Smith…I don't know what to do about any of this!"

"Where are the boys? I can see to Mr. Smith later."

"Upstairs in their rooms."

"Are the girls home?"

"No. Alice is off with her boyfriend, and I don't know where Lillian went – she snuck out."

Winnie nodded. "Why don't you make yourself a cup of tea? I'll be back down after I see the boys."

She ran upstairs without waiting for an answer.

"Jon? Jesse? It's me, Aunt Claudie!" she called.

"It can't be," Jesse growled wrenching open his door. "Aunt Claudie!"

"Hello, sweetie," she said, catching him into a hug. "I hear you've been having a rough time of it?"

"Aunt Claudie?" Jon said tentatively, opening his own door.

"In the flesh. Come on, let's sit down and have a talk. Tell me what all this fuss is about you two starting a riot?"

"It wasn't so much a riot," Jesse began.

"As a stampede," Jon finished for him. "Aunt Claudie, they want us to go fight this war, that isn't going anywhere. It already killed our brother, how can they ask us, or our mother, to sacrifice any more?"

Winnie shrugged. "Who can explain the minds of those who declare wars?"

"So why should we have to die for them?" Jesse asked heatedly. Winnie smiled at him.

"I didn't say you should. And I daresay your mother feels the same way. But you have to understand that they are the powers that be. And starting riots – or stampedes – isn't going to fix anything. I notice you've both grown your hair out; am I to take it you're joining Lillian in becoming hippies?"

"Not so much hippies, as countercultural," Jon said defiantly.

"Ah, yes. The much touted counterculture. Just be careful. I love you both. I want you to be safe. It's an unfortunate fact these days that being safe means being unobtrusive. I'd hate to see you get hurt protesting to stay out of this war, when the whole point of staying out of this war is to not get hurt."

"It's not only to make sure that we don't get hurt, but to make sure nobody gets hurt."

"Which makes it even more counterproductive if you actually get hurt. And in riots, people get hurt."

"Nobody got hurt in the one here."

"That's because Treegap is a sleepy, nowhere town. If you tried this in one of the big cities, somebody would have. The world is going crazy, and you need to pay attention and keep your eyes open. You're smart boys – if you play your cards right, you can help move the world in a better direction." Winnie sighed. "But I know my advice doesn't really count for much. I'm one of the 'square's, right? Besides, I came home mostly to check on your mom. Losing your father nearly killed her; I'm afraid losing your brother will."

"We've been taking it in turns to watch her, keep sharp objects out of her way and stuff," Jesse said helpfully.

Winnie gaped at him. "Well, then maybe you boys really do have it all under control. I can't stay for too long, I have work to do in San Francisco, but my boss let me have the week off to try to help your mom as much as I can. I'm glad to see that you're both paying attention. She's going to need you more than ever, you do realize that?"

The boys nodded somberly, and Winnie sensed it was time for a subject change.

"Okay, so tell me about these girls you two supposedly have wrapped around your fingers."

The boys laughed.

_Mission accomplished_, Winnie thought, as they began to chatter. _At least in that matter._

--

When Winnie had to leave again, it was hard. But she had managed to get the family back to cooperating and working together. Mae was still a wreck, but Winnie was confident that, with the help of her four remaining children, she would recover.

What had transpired with Jonathan, however, was even more interesting.

"Jonathan?" she said softly, knocking on his door and letting herself in. The old man was basically blind, so she hadn't bothered with making herself over. "Mae said you needed to see me?"

"She told me she couldn't get you to come back," he chuckled. "But I'm glad you did. I've missed you, Winifred Jackson."

"And I you, Jonathan Smith."

"I've had a lot of time to think, my girl, and I've found myself wondering a few things."

Winnie's spine stiffened. "Like what?"

"Like why I ever thought it would be a good idea to let our children become close? Not that I don't love Mae, or the grandchildren, because I do. But so much pain could have been averted if she'd never come to love my Thomas."

"But so much love would have been lost, as well. I've learned over the years that you can't isolate pain from love. To do so would be to cheapen the experience."

"Ah, indeed, indeed. I'm glad you agree – that was the conclusion I eventually came to, myself. At least, once I considered it in light of the loss of Thomas' mother."

"I know how much you loved your wife."

"But how did you come to learn that lesson, Winnie? There was no love lost between yourself and Alexander."

"No, indeed…" Winnie sighed. "I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me if I told you, Jonathan."

"No. You see, my girl, that's where you're wrong. I've reached a point in my life – that is to say, the end – where nothing would surprise me anymore. So what was it, fairy godmother wave her magic wand over you and poof! You suddenly understood?"

"Something like that. I fell in love when I was fifteen. He promised he'd come back for me, but he never did. He couldn't; his family had been accused of kidnapping me and murdering someone else, and they only barely escaped. Lately I've found myself wondering the same thing, about would averting the pain have been worth not having the experience of love, but I always come back to the same answer that nothing is worth reducing the love in the world."

"Such a lovely way of putting it…but, my dear Winnie, I knew this about you."

"You did?"

"I did. And I have a boon to ask of you?"

"Depends on what it is," Winnie answered playfully.

"No matter how much you may want to, _don't give up hope. _Jesse Tuck loves you, and he's still looking for you."

Winnie froze, emotions flaring in her chest in a confused jumble, so she couldn't identify one before the next overtook her. "I never… I never told you his name. It was never in the papers. There's nobody who could have known. How do you know?!"

"There was an art exhibit, many years ago, of work by graduating students at one of the universities in New York… The central piece was a dead ringer for you, and I know I've seen the backdrop in those woods of yours. I'm certain it was him."

"Jesse Tuck would be too old for university now."

"Unless he had found the fountain of youth," Jonathan said. Winnie's silence told him all he needed to know. "I rather thought so. And he told you the location, I suspect. You didn't intend to drink from it, but finally you did – what changed your mind?"

"I… I met a woman. She had a cure."

"Ah. That explains it. Finally, the mystery is solved. Now I can die in peace."

"How did you know, Jonathan?"

"My father was the man who Mae Tuck killed. No, don't worry about it. I hold no grudge. He was an unpleasant man, fixated only upon profits. He'd have let my mother and me starve to save the money he spent on food if it weren't bad for his business deals to have an emaciated family. He saw that spring as his one chance for ultimate glory. I'm glad Mae Tuck hit him over the head with a shovel. He deserved it."

Winnie laughed, and an unexpected tear trickled down her cheek.

"So if you knew, all this time – why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't want to scare you off. You were such a dear girl; so uncertain, though. I half wish I had said something – we could have travelled the world together and had spectacular adventures… but in the end your heart wouldn't have been mine anyway, and I have no right to trespass there."

"You're an incredible man, Jonathan. Even more so for understanding that."

"And you're an extraordinary woman. I'm very fortunate to have known you, during my stint on earth. I'll put in a good word for you with our maker, when I meet 'em. I'm leaving everything to your daughter, of course. She'll be very well taken care of. Thank you for letting my daft plan to match up Thomas and Mae play out. I like to think it improved both of their lives. The grandchildren certainly improved mine!" he added with a chuckle. "Now go, get back to your hunt. And remember: he's still out there. He'll always still be out there. And he loves you."

"Thank you. I really can't tell you how much that means to me."

"Not in words, maybe. But I know."

Winnie smiled, and kissed him on the forehead. By the time the door closed behind her, he was snoring.

--

Being in San Francisco had never been harder or easier. Since her conversation with Jonathan on his deathbed, everything had been thrown into such sharp relief. Colors seemed brighter, edges and outlines sharper, sounds clearer.

"Hey, Windy," someone called. "Windy? Windy!"

Eventually Winnie recognized the voice as that of her upstairs neighbor, and paused. "My name's Winnie," she corrected him. "And I'm sorry, but I've forgotten your name…?"

"I'm called Shamrock. I have some friends from New York coming over tonight, would you like to come up? Frog's bringing wine."

The fact that she was actually considering the offer showed just how much Winnie's social mores had changed in the seven months or so that she had been living with hippies. She'd even begun helping her neighbor, a sweet girl with a ridiculous adopted name of Amethyst Moonflower, care for her little girl, since she clearly had absolutely no idea what to do with a child and the father was conspicuously absent. Winnie had asked her how she intended to raise the girl, and Amethyst's answer had been a disconcertingly vague "I have friends who help." Seeing as one of those friends was supposed to be the girl down the stairs with a now-6 year old who was always relying on Amethyst Moonflower for a babysitter, Winnie didn't feel confident that little Star was getting all the attention she needed.

"Sorry, Shamrock," Winnie said, barely managing not to wince or giggle at the adopted name, "but you and…Frog…have fun with your friends. I have plans for this evening." That those plans amounted to curling up with a mug of hot tea and a good book didn't need to be mentioned.

"Are you sure? Well, the invitation stands, if you find yourself free. We're going to be hanging out all night. Good music, good food, good wine! If you aren't too tired, you should come up after you finish whatever you're up to."

"Yes, I'll keep it in mind. Thank you, Shamrock."

"Catch you later, Windy."

"It's _Winnie_," she muttered under her breath as she turned and walked down the road, heading for the corner market. "_Winnie. _What is so damnably hard about that?"

Still, she kind of liked Windy.

Later that evening, she made herself a pot of tea, convinced that she was going insane. The walls in the apartment building were so thin she could hear everything going on in Shamrock's apartment, and one of the visitors' voice and laugh were haunting her. He sounded so much like Jesse. She didn't know what his name was, didn't think it would help. Everyone was calling him Shiva, including a girl who was obviously his lover, judging from the way they were affectionately bantering back and forth.

Winnie felt a pang of loneliness, and considered heading upstairs to join them.

"I couldn't really sit there and listen to him speak without missing Jesse, though," she told her reflection in the mirror. "It would just hurt. It hurts enough. God, I miss being in love!"

She crawled back into a chair as her face crumpled and she began to cry.

_Oh, Jesse, where are you? Why have you left me alone for so long? You said you'd come back…_

She was stuck until he came back. It occurred to her that she had gambled her life. She didn't even know for certain that the water's cure would work! Never before had she felt so horribly caught and strangled.

_I won't test it_, she told herself resolutely. _I won't take the chance that Grandmother was wrong, only to find out she was right, and trap someone in this hell. I won't!_

But her resolve was beginning to wane. How much longer would it take?

_At least Mae is on the lookout. She knows what to look for. If Jesse returns to Treegap, she'll tell me. But, God, the hope is deadly._

--

Winnie left San Francisco and caught a plane for Italy the next week. She spent a week in Florence, two in Rome, and a month in Venice, seeing the art and drinking in the light and life that Italy radiated. She couldn't justify a longer stay, mostly for the fact that her passport was forged – no birth certificate made it difficult at best to get a legitimate one, and she really rather preferred that she not get arrested. As it had done with the Tuck family so long ago, it tended to make staying under the radar rather difficult.

So she went to Louisiana. There was no real reason to go to Louisiana except that she had heard the food was amazing and the music was good. Well, her traveling friends had been right about both. Winnie found herself easily slipping into the feel-good groove of the city on the bayous. She spent days wandering around in the baking heat, getting drunk on the smell of the summer flowers, painting fairy tale visions of her future. If only her whole life could be like this…

Then again, she supposed, it actually could.

She rented a room, and settled into it comfortably.

_I'm writing a book_, she wrote in her next letter to Mae. _I'm going to get it published under a pen name – Natalie Babbitt. About Them. If He reads it, He'll know I'm still waiting, maybe finally come looking.! It may fail, but it has to be better than waiting around._

After she posted the letter, she settled down at her desk, armed with a typewriter and reams of paper, to write her story.


	17. Ch 16: Reunion

Dear Everyone,

Welcome to my epic-length Author's Notes. As always, I don't own Tuck Everlasting, etc, etc, historical details may be wrong or used incredibly liberally, so on and so forth, read at your own risk, blah blah blah. Oh, and I prostrate myself on your mercy. I decided to shake up the narrative structure on the rest of this, which is why this one's taken so long when I originally said it should be almost done by Christmastime. Heh. Eight months later… I'm REALLY sorry, guys.

Rather than alternating between Jesse and Winnie for the next 3 decades each, I decided to smush both of their narratives into this one post and take this straight to the end. A lot of time gets skipped, because I really don't care about the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Like, at all. They bore me. (Sorry to anyone who finds these decades fascinating, but they just don't do it for me.) There will be a lot less detail about what they're each up to because of it, but this will get us to the reunion. There's one more post coming up after that, which is an epilogue of sorts. This update took so long because I was having issues with just getting the pacing of the whole entry right, let alone the tone of the reunion. I'm still _really_ not happy with it, but you guys have waited more than long enough. (I'm sorry!)

Thank you so much for your patience (and lovely reviews) over the course of this. It's been a crazy time in my life, personally; it's not an excuse for the delays that I've taken in updating, merely an explanation. I recently graduated from university and am having to find a real job in this crazy economy, on top of various health and personal issues. (Being an adult is totally overrated.) I wouldn't trade it for high school again, but I've only been graduated a month and I'm already wishing I could go back to college. (Cue the Avenue Q song.)

Next, I'll be working on one of two (and maybe both at once if I can find the time) story ideas, and I would like to know your opinions on which of these potential storylines you'd be likely to read/enjoy, as the more popular one will get more of my attention. Sad, but true; I'm kind of an attention whore that way. Mainly because this is my practicing ground for my original novels, which I hope to get published. (Currently at 150,000 words on one manuscript for an original fantasy series! It's very exciting.)

One idea I've been outlining would be set in the Buffyverse, and primarily follow the character Faith. I grew up watching Buffy (literally – the first season came out when I was 8 years old, and it really shaped my views on narrative and storytelling, among other things) and Faith was always my favorite character after her introduction in the third season. I really feel like she got shafted by the writers since her existence was mainly to provide a counterpoint to Buffy. I want to explore the circumstances that led to her being Chosen as the Slayer, spurred her into fleeing Boston for Sunnydale, and then led to her brief stint in flirting with evildoing that led to her semi-permanent labeling as the Dark Slayer. I also want to look at some of the potential aftereffects of the decisions made by the Slayers, the Scoobies, the Watchers' Council, the Initiative, and others in the series in terms of the larger scale war against evil. It would be set both during the show's run and after it (although it would not be canon through the entire series – I loathed the character Dawn, and want to substantially change her role, possibly even eliminate her). This fic would be very dark, given the canon material, but I think there's a lot about it that could be quite interesting. It would also have vampires being bloodsucking creatures of the night, rather than humanoid unicorns with sharp teeth, something which I think is important; I resent the de-monstrification of monsters in the modern era, especially regarding vampires. (Just one of the many reasons I Hate Twilight. Your mileage may vary, and probably does.)

As for the other idea, there is a novel called The Passion by an author named Jeanette Winterson, which is my absolute FAVORITE book ever written. It's a dark, adult fairy tale set during the Napoleonic wars. The main characters are a French soldier/kitchen boy named Henri, and a Venetian prostitute named Villanelle; during Napoleon's invasion of Russia, they run away from the army back to Venice, where Villanelle asks Henri to help her recover her heart, which had literally been stolen from her. It's a beautifully written novel (less than 200 pages long) which is, for all intents and purposes, a meditation on love, passion, and obsession. You really should all read it. It's one of the few books I bother to replace when I lose a copy or someone moves after forgetting to return it to me (something that happens a lot in college), simply because I love it so (to the point where I've been through four copies, and am getting another one next week). I actually re-read the book at least once a year, and have used it as the basis of many projects for theater classes. I'm sure if any of you decide to go and hunt it down, you'll probably see the influence of it on this story, because it has such a hold on my brain that it is, literally, inescapable. I have a few plot bunnies nesting in the back of my brain about Villanelle and Henri, and ((SPOILERS! THIS ONE SENTENCE GIVES AWAY THE ENTIRE END OF THE NOVEL.)) what happens if their daughter discovers that her father is a madman imprisoned in San Servelo for murder. ((END OF SPOILERS.)) This would touch on several fairy tales and folk myths, and be set in my very favorite city on earth, Venice. Go there if you ever get the chance; it's THAT amazing. Seriously.

Finally, if any of you have any suggestions for source materials I should look at, I'll consider them, depending on how well they fit with my own interests. My only rule is this: no Twilight. My reasons for despising that series are many and sundry, but I realize some of you may be serious fans of it, so I will refrain from going on a tirade about everything I object to in it. Far be it from me to legislate what people like, after all, and for good reasons. If that were the case, everything would end up being weird explorations of people's motivations in the face of increasingly dark realities. Or something. ;) I freely admit that I am fairly morbid.

I'd also rather not write about Harry Potter, because I feel like it's completely overdone and I don't have anything of much value to throw into it. This is mainly since, by the end, all of the characters I had any sort of creative interest in (with the exception of George) died, and I hate messing with internal continuity; it's very difficult to do even in your own stories where you can manipulate things around to suit your new timelines.

So, preferences? Both are outlined, and I give fair warning that I won't have much time for fic what with the whole "productive adulthood" thing, but I do want to write them to completion, and I want to see which one you guys would be more interested in reading. Thanks for everything!

Regards, and enjoy this section! -The Author

* * *

January 12, 1970 – March 20, 2001

"Welcome home, Jesse," Miles said, looking surprised as he held open the door. "Wasn't expecting to see you around. Rumor has it you'd been hanging around with the hippies and burning draft cards and such."

Jesse forced a laugh. "Can't believe everything you hear, Miles," he said and scoffed. "Are Ma and Tuck around? I have presents from San Francisco!"

"They're out shopping at the moment. Can I get you anything? Lunch, water…?"

"No, I think I'm just going to go for a walk. I want to see how Laurendale has changed."

"Just a couple new shops on Main Street," Miles said suspiciously, looking askance at Jesse. "You've been gone less than a decade; and it's not like it's a city."

Jesse shrugged. "I've just gotten off the train. I've been sitting for hours. I need to stretch my legs." He paused. "You've been here almost a decade, you planning on moving on soon?"

"Probably inside a couple of months. Thinking of heading to Indianapolis. Ma and Tuck will probably stick around, seeing as they only got here a year or two ago." Miles paused. "They're tired, Jesse."

"They've always been tired."

"I mean, like, their _souls_ are tired. There was always that weariness, but this is different."

Jesse bit his lip as he considered that. "We'll just have to think of some solution, won't we?"

As he bounced across the threshold of the door to go for a walk, Miles watched him go. Closing the door, he muttered under his breath, "It don't work like that, Jesse Tuck, and you know it right well."

* * *

Winnie knew her neighbors thought she was bizarre. She had been holed up in this beach cabin outside of Big Sur for months, barely even venturing out for food. She made one weekly foray outside, always on Saturday, and then she didn't talk to people. She didn't want to interrupt the flow of her story, or to lose the thread of her narrative. It was a careful spiderweb she was attempting to weave in order to tell a story that clearly signaled to Jesse Tuck that she was waiting for him, but which didn't give too many details that it would be clear to any who were looking for hints that she was telling something truer than fiction.

Mostly, she took liberties with her own identity. Dropping her age, changing the amount of time she spent with the Tucks, changing her family. She debated endlessly with herself about how to change the ending, and in the end settled for feeding a frog the water of immortality. She only hoped Jesse would assume the truth – that she was making a reference to the frogs by the waterfall they had swum in. They had startled her then; frightened her, even. She had thought they were disgusting and shrieked when she accidentally touched one. He had laughed at her and explained that the poor little creature was far more terrified than she was.

She still didn't think she could voluntarily touch one, though. She just hoped he would know that.

...

Finally, she finished the manuscript and phoned Mae.

"Mae, darling, I've finished!" she said, a triumphant feeling swelling in her breast. "It's finally done!"

"That's…" Mae fell into a horrific coughing fit. "Wonderful, Mama." She sounded weak.

The triumphant feeling died quickly. "Mae, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Mama." Another round of coughing. "Just a chest cold."

"It sounds like far more than a chest cold. Should I come home?"

"Don't trouble yourself. Just get that publishing contract. Little Jesse's still around. He's going to the local college. He can take care of me."

* * *

Jesse ambled into the bookstore he had taken to frequenting. The sales girl reminded him of Winnie. She had her little sister in with her today; when Jesse saw her face, he felt almost as though someone had punched him. The little girl was a spitting image of his Christa.

"Martin, how are you today?" Mary asked him.

"Fine, fine!" Jesse sputtered, grabbing the nearest book and turning it over. "Just came in to see if you have anything new."

"That one's not so great, just another trashy love story for bored housewives," Mary said and giggled. "Didn't know you were into those."

Jesse flinched and threw it back onto the shelf with all the vehemence he could muster.

"Read this one!" Mary's sister said, waving a book around.

"Martin's not interested in kids books," Mary said, taking it from the little girl. "Tina's been raving about this one; she's read it four times already. I should go put it back. Wait here."

"Actually," Jesse interrupted, catching her arm. "I really would like to take a look at it. I have a nephew," he explained. Really, he had seen the title. _Tuck Everlasting. _It was a little too strange for him. "His birthday's next month."

"Oh, okay, then." Mary handed him the novel. "You've never mentioned him before. Does he live nearby?"

"Nah. New York. I saw him a lot when I was at NYU," Jesse mumbled absently, turning it over to read the back.

...

He bounded inside, full of excitement. "She's still waiting for me!" he shouted once the door was closed.

"Jesse Tuck, what are you talking about?" Mae called from the kitchen, where she was washing dishes.

"Winnie! She wrote a book!"

Tuck looked up from his newspaper. "She what?"

"It's under the name Natalie Babbitt, called _Tuck Everlasting! _It's the story of us!" Jesse was bouncing up and down on his toes with excitement. Mae and Tuck shared a glance across the room.

"Jesse," Miles said, sparing them from having to deflate him, "how does it end?"

"What?"

"How does it end? If it's the story of you, the ending will tell you something important."

Jesse sat down, staring at Miles. "The ending's not important, Miles. The point is she's still alive! She's alive and young enough to write a novel."

"Jesse, sweetheart," Mae said, coming into the room. "Tuck and I saw that book yesterday. We read the ending. The Winnie character doesn't drink the water."

Jesse's posture crumbled slightly. "What do you mean?"

"She gives it to a frog," Miles said. "It's not impossible for a woman to live to her 70s, 80s, or to be lucid enough to write a book. If that's how the story ends, there's a fair chance it's how the reality ends."

"I'll only believe that when I see her grave," Jesse muttered, getting up. "Winnie hated frogs. She's alive and she loves me. She'd wait. That's all the evidence I need to keep believing."

He stormed out of the room and the other three shared a sad silence.

"That boy's going to break his own fool heart," Mae muttered and turned back to her dishes.

* * *

Winnie fought back a fresh bout of tears as she rode the train back to Treegap. Mae's chest cold had turned out to be pneumonia, and she had died before Winnie could make it home. The clear and sunny day was completely incongruous with the funereal atmosphere surrounding her as she tried to slip back into the Aunt Claudie routine before her grandson picked her up from the station. She was getting too old for all this subterfuge, and she had let her Winnie persona last too long.

"No mother should outlive her child," she whispered to herself as the scenery whipped past.

"Aunt Claudie!" Lillian was there to meet her at the station, instead of Jesse like she had expected. Their trip back to the mansion was short and silent; mourning filled the silences around them like cotton batting.

...

The funeral was a quiet affair. The presiding priest was an ancient man who had served Treegap since Winnie's marriage. Fortunately, his eyesight was failing him, and though he remarked that her voice was eerily familiar, he was content to accept her distant-cousin-of-the-family's explanation for why it would be so.

As she walked back to the house, her feet took her automatically to the stream in the woods. She knelt down at the base of the old tree and traced her hands over its bark, fighting back tears. A branch snapped behind her, and she spun around to see her youngest grandson.

"Jesse, shouldn't you be at the wake?" she asked calmly, though she was wiping tears from her cheeks.

"I came to ask you the same thing, Nana."

It was a good thing she was already kneeling, or she'd have fallen on her face when her knees buckled at that. "What did you call me?"

"Mom told me. About the magical spring. She said one of us had to know, to help you, after she moved on. The others don't know." The words came out in a jumble, tumbling over each other. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"It's a dangerous secret, sweetheart. I didn't want to put you at risk of anything."

Jesse nodded and came to sit beside her. "I could have handled it," he whispered.

"It was never a question of if you could handle it," Winnie said, laughing for the first time since she had heard Mae's terrible coughing. "People have died over this spring. It needs to be dammed up or something."

"Someone could put a head stone on it," Jesse said, making the suggestion in the deceptively casual manner of one who's considered their options for a long time and wants to appear as though it came to them spontaneously.

"That they might."

"Now's not the time, though."

"No, this family has suffered enough for now. First your brother, now your mother… It's such a tragedy."

"The girls are both engaged, though."

"Are they really?"

"Jonathan is dating a man."

Winnie stared at her youngest grandson. "What is this, the gossip hour?"

"Pretty much. I missed having you to talk to, Nana."

"I missed you, too. But you probably shouldn't call me that."

"Will you ever tell me what you've been up to all these years?"

"Maybe one day."

* * *

"Ma, I'm worried about Jesse," Miles whispered, his voice so soft that the hum of crickets in the heavy air outside would drown the sound out. Not that he was terribly worried about being overheard; the focus Jesse was directing to _Tuck Everlasting _was unbreakable. The entire family had tried.

"I am, too. How many times has he read that cursed book?"

"I lost count at 3,459."

"He starts rereading it every time he finishes it; there are pages falling out. He hasn't had a spare moment wasn't devoted to it. He could probably recite it in his sleep," Tuck grumbled. "We need to take it away from him before he gets so high on hope that the crash destroys what's still left of his soul after Germany."

Jesse threw himself into work in a frenzy. He may have had to change jobs with obscene frequency, but he worked hard at them to save up money. Every week he asked Tuck if he could return to Treegap for Winnie. Each time, he received the same response.

He read and re-read _Tuck Everlasting _until it nearly crumbled into dust, and then he bought another copy and continued the process. Gradually, his bank account was growing. He was determined that when he found Winnie again, they would be able to live comfortably for the rest of their eternal lives.

For their part, the other Tucks grew increasingly more worried with each day Jesse passed in this frenzy of work and idealization. They had significantly less hope that Winnie was still waiting.

* * *

Winnie and her grandson made the decision that Mae's cousin Claudette died in a terrible car crash a few years later. The forged death certificate cost a fortune, but it was worth it. Winnie didn't know whether to be grateful or troubled that, according to Jesse, his siblings took the 'death' relatively well. She also supposed that not much would be able to compare to the losses they had already suffered of both father and mother.

For her part, Winnie decided to retreat into the woods so she would be nearby to Jesse. His siblings had all moved away; Jonathan went to San Francisco. The girls got married and moved with their husbands, one to Michigan and one to New Hampshire. Jesse came often to visit her in the Tucks' old cabin, bringing news of his siblings and their new babies and jobs. He brought them carefully crafted news of their elderly grandmother and her world travels.

...

After the old priest died, there was nobody left in town who would remember Winnie or Claudette besides Jesse, and he already knew the secret. He and Winnie argued long hours about whether she should come back into town. She always protested that she was happy living in the woods, that they were her living memorial to the time in her life when she was happiest.

The years wore on, and Jesse's hair began to silver, but Winnie's remained lustrous and dark. He got crows' feet and smile lines; her skin was smooth and unblemished from the years. He would often make jokes that somehow he had become an old bachelor while his grandmother remained a fair maiden; she would joke back that no maiden had ever lived who stayed that way half a century and more without sacrificing children or small animals.

...

One golden afternoon in October he hiked into the woods to find her, rather than waiting for her to take her weekly stroll in for tea.

"Nana, I'm going to die." His words jolted her sharply out of her reverie, lying on the banks of the river and watching birds flit about. "I have a brain tumor. It's inoperable."

The heat of the day was oppressive. As Winnie searched for words to reply, gaping at him like a fish out of water, he hastily changed the subject. "I guess Indian summer's shown up, eh?"

She burst into tears at that and pulled him into a hug. "I outlived your mother, and that was devastating. I shouldn't outlive my grandson. It defies nature."

Her tears triggered a reaction in him, and his calm façade shattered. "I'm scared, Nana. I don't want to lose my mind or my dignity. They say it's inevitable, once the tumor reaches a certain size."

Winnie held him. "Tuck said to me, once, that the thing to fear isn't death. He said the thing to fear is the unlived life."

"You never did tell me about that."

"I should fix that." She gestured for him to lay down beside her on the river bank, and told him stories until the sun set across the water. Somewhere in the tale, he had drifted off to sleep. She kissed his forehead and shook his arm.

"Tickles," he mumbled, sounding only half-awake.

"What have you always wanted to do, but never been able to?" she asked him quietly.

"Travel Europe. Meet my father. Go back and tell Tommy that he was the best brother imaginable before he died, or better yet, stop him from going to Vietnam in the first place and tell him that every day of his life. Punch Lillian's husband in the face. Ride a camel in a caravan across the Sahara desert. See the pyramids… Lots of things. Why?"

Winnie wiped a stray tear off of her cheeks. "Because you should go and do those things."

"I don't think my doctors would like that."

"And what do they know about living? They only know about staving off death, but that's not life."

She finally managed to convince him in the end, and he packed off to visit his siblings before heading to Europe and Africa for an adventure. Both of them knew that he would likely die while he was away, and that they both thought it was for the best so nobody would have to remember Jesse sick and decrepit.

His doctors, predictably, thought the idea was disastrous, but once everything was bought and paid for, Jesse was more peaceful and luminous than Winnie had ever seen him before.

She saw him off, and then broke into tears. She was still sobbing when she curled up in her cabin.

...

The last thing he had done before he left was place a headstone for Winifred Foster-Jackson. It concealed the enchanted spring so nobody could accidentally drink from it again. Lillian and her husband had brought their two kids to live in Winnie's parents' home, and they showed no signs of finding the location.

Winnie could only hope Jesse Tuck would come back soon now that she was alone in the world.

* * *

"Tuck, it's 1999! Can I please, finally, go and see Winnie? She'd be a hundred years old, this year. There's no way, none whatsoever, that anyone else who could possibly remember us would still be alive and lucid enough to be taken seriously in court."

Tuck looked at Mae, then Miles, then Jesse. He could no longer stall; they all knew it. Slowly he nodded.

"Promise me, Jesse, that no matter what happens, you'll come right back here. Whether she waited or not."

"Of course she waited!" At Tuck's stern glare, Jesse nodded. "Not like we've got anywhere else to go, anyway."

Tuck nodded. Mae put a hand on his shoulder. Together they watched their youngest son bound out of the door to find out his fate.

The heat of the day was oppressive. Jesse didn't pay it much attention, however, as he rode his motorcycle through the sleepy streets of Treegap, racing for the woods.

"Who are you?" a teenaged girl shouted as he wandered up the path toward the woods. "Those woods are private property."

"Hello, miss," Jesse said, waving and smiling at her. "My name is… James Taylor. My grandfather used to walk around those woods as a boy; I just wanted to take a gander and see what they're like. He drew some beautiful landscapes from up there."

"Can't figure how he'd have found his way up there. Those woods have been private property since my great-grandmother was a girl. I'm Alex Robertson."

"He knew the family who used to live in that house," Jesse said.

"Oh! He must have known my grandmother then! Mae Jackson was her maiden name."

"I think so. He often spoke about a Mae, and her mother Winnie. How is Mae? I bet he'd like news of her, if there is any."

"Oh. I'm sorry, but she's been dead for years. Pneumonia, apparently; I never knew her. Funny that her mother outlived her so long – Winnie only died six months ago. We got the letter just after we got the call about Uncle Jesse. They were traveling in Africa together, I guess. You should ask Mama about Mae, though; she'd have a better idea. From what I've heard, she pretty much gave up living after Uncle Thomas died in Vietnam; there are still photos of them around, if you want to come in for some lemonade and have a look-see. After Uncle Jesse died, we took over the house, but we haven't changed much."

Jesse felt as though he'd been punched. So much information in so few sentences.

"I think I'd like to look in the woods, first," he managed to choke out.

"Go on ahead; if you follow that path all the way, it'll take you past Winnie's memorial stone at the oak tree; that's the boundary of the woods proper. Enjoy your stroll."

Jesse nodded weakly, feeling dizzy as he staggered off in the direction the girl had indicated.

_She's dead. She's dead. She's really dead, and Miles was right about that book. How could this happen?_

He reached the marker more quickly than he had expected and knelt down in front of it. He felt numb inside as he traced his fingers over the carved inscription.

"Oh, Winnie," he said, his voice a breath above a whisper. "I knew I waited too long. Tuck wouldn't let me come back sooner, though." He swallowed hard. "I will love you until the day I die."

"And so will I, Jesse Tuck." Winnie's voice behind him startled him into a violent shudder. He spun around, losing his balance and falling back against the tree.

"Good God, Winnie! You scared me half to death!"

She chuckled and stepped forward to hug him. "I had to die eventually. I had a family, people who'd notice if I didn't keep on aging like them." She pulled back, frowning. "Mae – my daughter – she knew. She told my grandson before she died. He never told anyone else. We forged some documents to tell the family that their travelling grandmother had passed on. They put this up a week later. Now I'm just a phantom spirit." She spun around as if to elaborate her point somehow.

Jesse surged forward, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. "I thought I'd lost you when I heard you died… I thought you were gone forever."

"Technically, Winifred Jackson _is _gone forever. I go by Annette Foster, now. I even have the documents to prove it."

Jesse grinned. "Well, then, Annette – I'm supposed to bring you back home. I promised Tuck that, no matter what happened, I'd head straight there before going anywhere else. They were convinced you wouldn't have drunk the water."

Winnie took Jesse's hand and led him into the forest a ways before turning to face him and murmuring softly, "I wasn't going to. You'll notice, I'm not seventeen. I'm twenty-four."

"So what changed?"

"My husband read my diary, and learned about my love for you. In a fit of drunken jealousy, he frightened me, and I ran away. I left my daughter, still just a small child, and headed west, where I met an old Indian woman. She said there's a cure."

"A what?" Jesse's knees, still weak from the shock of finding Winnie alive, gave out again and he nearly fell to the ground.

"A way to reverse the water's effects. So I drank the water, and decided to wait for you. To help your family truly live again, just as you helped me so many years ago."

"Well, what is it?" Jesse asked, steadying himself against a tree. He gaped slightly as Winnie pulled a small vial out of her blouse.

"There's just enough for five, she said. We should wait until we get back to the others."

Jesse nodded. "I've missed you, Winnie."

"I've missed you too, Jesse."

Jesse sighed, kicking absently at the ground. "I have some things I have to tell you, Winnie. I… I've done so many things I shouldn't have. I… I had a child."

Winnie sat down on the ground. "Who was she? The mother?"

Jesse sat beside her. "Her name was Catrin. She lived in Germany, and died in Dresden during the bombings. Her daughter – our daughter – was named Christa. She died from smoke inhalation injuries she received during the firebombing. It nearly destroyed me, losing her."

Winnie took a deep breath and held it, then let it out slowly. "I suppose I can't criticize," she said finally, although she wasn't looking at him. "I married and had Mae, after all. I won't lie and say it doesn't hurt to hear, though."

Jesse turned her face to his. "I never stopped loving you, Winnie. You never stopped being foremost in my mind and heart."

"How did you get over it?" Winnie asked, turning her head away again. Jesse didn't press the point. "The loss of your daughter?"

"I drank, a lot. And I went to NYU and studied art and met…" he scoffed, "Kimiko Sunbeam. One of the flower children. She didn't want commitment; she just wanted to be. What is it?"

"Kimiko Sunbeam?" Winnie asked, tone skeptical.

"It's what she called herself. Her name was Nancy, really."

"And what was your hippie name?"

"Shiva. The destroyer. He's a god in the Hindu religion, apparently."

Winnie gasped, blanched, and got up to begin walking down the path.

"Winnie? What is it?" Jesse asked, rushing to catch up to her.

"I was Frog and Shamrock's downstairs neighbor during the Summer of Love. I heard the two of you upstairs, and swore to myself for years that it couldn't possibly have been you, that you couldn't speak to another woman with that kind of love and joy in your voice. You never even spoke to me like that…"

"Winnie!" Jesse grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. "I love you. I have always loved you and I will always love you. The other women were my attempts to drown everything out because everyone was telling me that you would never wait for me! But you did, and I'm here, and I know I've screwed up but I will spend every day of the rest of our lives making this up to you. Please, Winnie. Give me that chance." He reached out and wiped one of the tears trickling down her cheeks away. "Please."

Slowly she nodded, and reached out to hug him. "I've missed you so much, Jesse."

* * *

"Ma, Tuck, I brought Winnie back!" Jesse's voice rang cheerfully through the whole house. Winnie couldn't help but feel slightly self-conscious; it had been so long since she'd seen anyone as herself.

Footsteps rattled down the staircase in the living room, and Mae Tuck came into view. "Winnie!" she shouted, and ran over to hug her. "Oh, Winnie, it's so good to see you!" Winnie could tell, however, that her joy was dampened by sadness that Winnie was trapped in this ageless life as well.

"You shouldn't have drunk the water," Tuck said. Winnie looked up from hugging Mae to see him standing in the hallway. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, Winnie, but you shouldn't have done it."

"Angus, no point in belaboring the point. The point is she's here now. Come in, come in. Dinner's almost ready."

"Actually, Ma, Tuck, Winnie has a cure."

Miles snorted, coming in the side door from the garage. "There ain't no cure, Jess. If there were, we'd have found it by now."

"Isn't it worth a shot, anyway?" Winnie asked, taking out a large jar from her bag. "We just have to drink this. Jesse and I did all the other prep work before we came here."

The other Tucks shared a long look. Finally, Miles shrugged. "Get me a teacup."

Winnie poured the tincture into four cups, reserving a fifth of it.

"Aren't you going to drink it?" Jesse asked.

"You have to catch up to me, first," she said. "I'm not about to be the older woman to a man who's over one hundred years older than me."

Jesse smiled. "Well, bottoms up. Cheers, Winnie!" He picked up his glass and downed the liquid.

The other Tucks watched him closely. He didn't choke or gasp, or otherwise change in any immediately perceivable way.

"Didn't work," Miles grumbled, getting up to dump the liquid down the sink.

"Wait!" Jesse shouted. "There has to be a test for it." He went over and rummaged in the kitchen drawer. "Remember how wounds would close over?" He pulled out a large, sharp knife. Winnie averted her eyes, but heard three gasps around him. "Uh, Ma, can you get me a bandage?" Jesse asked in a quavering voice.

"It worked, it really worked!" Mae said, sounding tear-choked. "Angus, we're finally free of this curse!"

"Or we're just more vulnerable immortals," Tuck said. "We can't be sure. None of us has been exposed to anything potentially deadly yet. Just a deep slice to the palm."

"It's still promising," Jesse said stubbornly.

Winnie smiled as she capped the jar of remaining liquid and tucked it away.


	18. Ch 17: Reconciliation

Author's Notes: See disclaimers throughout.

Well, we finally made it! Here it is, the last section with the culmination we've all been waiting for. I hope it's a satisfactory conclusion for you guys Thanks so much for all of your kind words and patience.

I may write an epilogue to this, but otherwise it's finished. Which brings me to the next point of discussion; the next story. I've gotten exactly two votes. One for the Buffy one, and one for the The Passion one. Needless to say, this is kind of a conundrum. So, what I think I'm going to do is (unless I get a bunch of votes for one over the other in the next few days here), is write the first chapter to each and then see which one seems to be better received. That'll be the one I focus on more, although I will work on both. Hope to see you there!

Now, enjoy this final section. :)

* * *

August 15, 2001 - July 12, 2010

Not all was well in Paradise. Winnie knew that she wasn't being fair to Jesse, that both of them had had to move on and have lives with other people during the long time of their separation. But once the initial shock of seeing him again and learning what he had been up to, followed by the flurry of activity as they returned to the Tuck family home, had passed, she found that she couldn't shake the resentment eating at her soul. The jealousy and darkness in her heart were forcing a rift between them. It wasn't at all the happy reunion they had both envisioned and dreamed of for almost ninety years.

"This isn't working for me, Jesse," she said finally, in the middle of a late summer night. The heat and humidity was oppressive, and neither of them had been able to sleep. He finally crept out to the porch, and she had eventually followed, both hoping to catch a breeze.

Jesse looked over to her, standing in the doorway to the house. "What's wrong?" He patted the seat next to him on the porch swing, and slid over slightly.

She sat down carefully, not looking at him. "I can't stop thinking. I know I shouldn't be this jealous, but…" She sighed. "You had a child, Jesse. You were with another woman long enough to have a child with her, and you had at least one other lover that I know of-"

"They were the only ones," he protested.

"-and it kills me. How could you do that?"

"It happened by accident. I never intended to have relationships with Catrin or Kimiko. It just happened."

"How do you accidentally sleep with someone, Jesse?" Winnie demanded.

He gave her a sharp look. "I accidentally grew to have feelings for them. My actions were deliberate. But let's not forget, Winnie; you married and had a child yourself."

"That was different!"

"How?" His voice was quiet.

"I had no other options. My mother had suitors coming to the house; I didn't think I'd drink the water; I had to find some way to move on!"

"So what should I have done, Winnie, if you hadn't drunk the water and waited for me?"

She had no answer for that, and she almost hated him for it. She turned on her heel and ran inside the house, back up to their room, where she lay awake all night turning their conversation over and over in her mind.

…

"Where's Jesse?" Winnie asked, coming into the kitchen. She'd overslept, and woken to find him gone. They hadn't spoken about their jealousy since that night, but it still hadn't quite gone away. Winnie couldn't help but secretly fear that it would still rip them apart.

"Angus took him and Miles to meet with the forgers to get us all our paperwork," Mae answered. She was kneading bread on the wide marble countertop, just like she had done every day for two hundred and more years. For the first time, though, her hands had a wrinkled, age-spotted appearance, and Winnie noticed the silver strands streaking the older woman's hair. "What can I do for you, Winnie?"

"Did you know about Catrin and Christa?" she asked, taking a seat and picking up a paring knife to slice and peel some apples waiting on the table.

"Miles told us; Jesse never did work up the courage to set the record straight, so most of what I know is hearsay and logic. Nearly broke his fool heart, I know that. But if what you're concerned about is whether he loved them better than you, the answer is absolutely not."

"I wasn't going to ask that."

"You're a liar, Winnie, and a fool if you expect me to believe that."

"I never!" Winnie sputtered in indignation. "What he did during our time apart is his own lookout. It was a lifetime, of course he wouldn't wait around."

Mae rolled her eyes and threw a handful of flour at Winnie. "He never stopped asking about you, girl. Never. Do you know how many times he read that damnable book of yours?"

"…No."

"More than any of us could keep count of. He can probably quote it back at you, if you ask him to."

"Oh."

"Yeah, _oh. _You can doubt his sense, his brains, or his judgment. The good Lord knows I do on a regular schedule. But don't ever doubt his loyalty or love for you."

Winnie frowned and chopped a few apples. "It's still hard to overcome my jealousy."

"You're just going to have to figure that out on your own, then. But keep it in perspective. He didn't do anything more than you did yourself. He's got the same number of people in his past as you do. A child, and that child's other parent."

…

The Tuck family sat huddled around the television, watching, horrorstruck, as planes collided with the World Trade Center towers. It was evident to all of them that, of all the changes in the world they had witnessed over their many years, this would herald the biggest.

"How can people do things like this?" Winnie gasped, staring transfixed at the screen.

Miles got up and turned it off. "Same way they've done all the other things they've done to each other over the years. Now it's just televised over and over and over again."

"We remember when those fool planes were first built, though," Jesse said. "It makes it feel different."

"We can also remember when cars were invented, among other things, and we saw the destruction tanks wreaked in several wars. It's nothing new. Any technology man ever invents, he puts to use in war eventually," Miles said. He headed for the kitchen. "Thank god we won't have to see all the rest of them for the rest of eternity. This one looks like it'll boil up bad enough, with that idiot Bush in office."

Jesse nodded soberly. He and Winnie shared a long look.

"It's so terrible," Mae said wearily, taking out her knitting. "People never learn how to live peacefully with those who are different. And so few know how to forgive."

…

"I'm sorry I've been so hard on you," Winnie whispered to Jesse when they were alone that night.

"It's okay. I know it must have been difficult to accept," he whispered back, tucking a stray piece of her hair behind her ear. "Sometimes even I wonder what in hell I was thinking."

"Still. Mae knocked some sense into me. And with the world going crazy… What we have is too important to lose over something as stupid as jealousy."

"I love you, Winnie."

"I love you, too."

…

They travelled together, making a pilgrimage out of their wanderings across the country, revisiting sites that had held significance in each of their lives. At the very end, they went to New York. Jesse showed Winnie around NYU, she took him to Jonathan's family estate in Rochester and showed him the grove where Mae and Thomas had wed.

"I feel so strange saying this, in case anyone overhears me," Winnie said as she flopped down beneath a tree, "and wonders what such a young woman means by it, but I miss my daughter and my grandchildren."

Jesse nodded and sat beside her. She shivered despite the heat of the day, and he put an arm around her. "It makes sense that you would, Winnie. You loved them, and now you can't see them anymore…"

"Do you ever miss… anyone… from your past?" she asked.

Jesse was silent for several moments. "I don't know if we should talk about this," he muttered finally. "It's a very loaded subject for both of us."

"You think I'm still jealous?"

"I know that jealousy doesn't always fade just because we resolve not to be jealous."

"Jesse, this is important! I need to know. Do you ever miss them? Any of them?"

Jesse sighed, then took a few deep breaths. "Winnie, listen to me and let this be the end of the subject. I won't lie to you, because I love you too much for that. So listen, and believe me. Yes, Catrin and Kimiko mattered to me. Yes, sometimes they still cross my mind. Yes, I loved them, each in her own way. But the love I had with Catrin or with Kimiko was nothing, is nothing, and will never be anything like the way I love you. I was waiting for you for all those years, even while I was abandoning Catrin, even while I was being dumped by Kimiko, and even while I was sitting in a hospital in London praying to any god who cared to listen that my daughter would live. So yes, I suppose you could say that sometimes I miss them. But it's different from how I always missed you. I miss Christa the way you miss Mae, as my child and without regard for the feelings I bore her mother. I miss Catrin the way I'm sure you sometimes miss Alex before drinking rotted his brain – as the other parent of the child I love and as a friend who I did grievous wrong to. I would change it if I could, but she's dead and I can't, so why let it change the present? And I miss Kimiko the way you seem to miss Jonathan, judging by the way you've spoken of him here, as the dear friend who taught me how to live again after my trials in life had left me hollow. Do you believe me, Winnie? _Can _you believe me? Because if not, then there isn't much point in anything that we do together."

"I don't know, Jesse. You're right. It's one thing to say I won't be jealous… But it's just so hard knowing about these other women. I want it to stop hanging over our heads. I want this… this cloud around us to dissipate!"

"So what would make it dissipate, Winnie? I'll do anything you ask me to."

"That's the problem, Jesse. I just don't know."

…

They were leaving a matinee of Les Misérables when Jesse's cell phone rang.

"Jess, it's Miles. Tuck was out pulling weeds in the garden, and he had a heart attack. Ma's gone with the paramedics; they're taking him to the hospital. You need to get back as soon as you can."

"We'll get in the car and come right back. Is he okay, Miles?"

"We called at the first sign, so the paramedics were hopeful that he should be fine with some medication and advice from a doctor. Still, I think it's best if you and Winnie come home."

"We're heading for the car now," Jesse agreed, taking Winnie's hand and pulling her along. She gave him a confused stare as he hung up and shoved his phone in the pocket. "I'll explain in the car. Let's go."

Winnie nodded, and let him lead her.

…

Tuck ended up being mostly fine. A prescription for aspirin every day and something for his cholesterol and the doctors were certain he'd be fine.

"Aside from the tension and elevated cholesterol, Mr. Tuck, you're the picture of health. You might even live to see a hundred," Dr. Okuda said, laughing heartily as he left the room. The assembled Tucks all looked at each other gravely, not laughing. Still, everyone was relieved, and they went home.

…

A couple of years passed. Jesse and Winnie stayed closed to his parents while Miles went off on a trip through India and the Middle East. He said he needed time away to ponder the meaning of life. Winnie had been joking that he was off on a pilgrimage, but all of them were pretty much in agreement that Miles needed to find something to believe in again. Even if it was just himself.

Slowly, the visible age difference between Jesse and Winnie had been eradicated. She was trying to calculate in her head how old he must be getting to be, and realized he only had a few more months left before his "24th" birthday.

"When is Jesse's birthday?" she asked one afternoon while she helped Mae in the kitchen while Jesse and Tuck were in the garden.

"November 30. Are you planning something?"

"Not yet, it's still eight months away. It just occurred to me that I didn't know when it was."

Mae nodded, but didn't say anything. Winnie took the moment to watch her as she washed a few dishes. The years had caught up with her quite quickly; her hair was entirely silver now, and the lines in her face had grown deep. Tuck was the same way. It struck Winnie that perhaps their extra longevity was being paid for with a quicker aging process and demise than most people underwent, but she chased the thought away with the fact that Jesse and Miles were still well and hale.

"I can't believe it was so many years ago," Mae said finally. "The world has changed more than I ever would have thought possible. I'm tired, though, and I'll be glad to leave it when my time comes."

"Mae, don't say such a thing!"

"Why not, Winnie? It's the truth. I've lived the years of four women, maybe five. Mortals weren't meant to see so much. I can feel the weariness in my bones, now. The time will come soon, for both Tuck and I. We've spoken about it, and we have no regrets, so it holds no fear for us."

Winnie sat frowned. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that."

Mae shrugged one shoulder, clearly signaling an end to the subject. "When are you going to cure yourself of immortality, Winnie? Jesse's nearly caught up to you; there's functionally no age difference now, and I want to see you two married and starting your real life together. You've both waited so long."

"I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it, except to think I'd wait until he'd turned twenty-five."

"If I were you, I wouldn't wait any longer. You never know what this world has in store."

…

Winnie waited a few months. Every time she pulled out the jar and looked at the liquid that would cure her of immortality, she felt a sudden pang of fear. Drinking it would mean taking back her centuries of life, and though she had taken Angus Tuck's warning not to fear death, she couldn't shake the dread of it. It seemed to her that curing her immortality would be akin to committing suicide, although over a long period of time.

Still, she could see the Tucks aging, and she feared letting time steal them away from her the way it had stolen her daughter and grandchildren. The whole situation was a conundrum.

She was sitting in her bedroom, tilting the jar back and forth, watching the liquid catch the light and sparkle as it sloshed around, pondering this question when Jesse ran in. She startled, nearly dropping the jar, barely catching it at the last moment.

"Jesse! Don't do that!" she gasped out as she fumbled the jar onto a table.

"I'm sorry, Winnie, I didn't know- wait! You're going to take the cure! You're going to reverse this! We can finally start our lives!"

Jesse was so overjoyed about this that Winnie didn't know how to tell him that she had only taken the jar out to consider it. Her heart was racing at the thought of how close she had come to being trapped. Unable to find words, she nodded numbly, and twisted the cap off. She stared at the liquid for a few moments, before squeezing her eyes shut and tossing the liquid down her throat like someone taking a shot of vodka. It burned all the way down, and she felt the burning tingling spread through her body out to the tips of her fingers and toes, and even her hair.

The deed was done. The magic was revoked. Winnie was surprised to feel a tear trickling down her cheek, and the fear and dread of death slam back into her with all the fury and rage they could muster from years of being ignored. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

"What did you come up here for?" she asked Jesse in a soft voice.

"Miles came home." He watched her for a long moment, but neither said anything. Finally, Winnie nodded.

"Then let's go say hello."

…

The next few days were bizarre. Winnie could feel the new life in the cells of her body, could feel her skin humming and vibrating, almost, as cells divided and died. Gradually, the new awareness faded, but it was a sensation she was certain to remember forever.

As the awareness of it faded, she began to find the strength to combat her fear of death. She was a young woman, healthy and strong. There was no reason to dread it. Yet. She contented herself with the knowledge that she wouldn't outlive another child of hers, but that just raised more questions than she wanted to answer.

She and Jesse had been unofficially engaged in all of their minds since their reunion and reconciliation. Now that both were officially mortal, and of ages where marriage would not be seen as too unusual, they began to plan for it. Both were struggling with doubts. Not about the other; they loved each other and knew that they would work through whatever lingering jealousy there may be, but rather about how they would live their lives.

"Do you want to have children?" Winnie asked Jesse suddenly. The question had been plaguing her for months. "I mean… more?"

"Yes. Don't you?" Jesse asked, sitting down across from her.

"I don't know. It's such a complicated situation…"

"How is it complicated? We're young, we're getting married, we're going to be able to provide a stable home."

"Mae and Christa?" Winnie asked.

Jesse sighed. "Yes, we've both had children. Children who are no longer with us. Winnie, I want to have a child with you."

Winnie nodded, but she didn't meet his gaze.

"Think about it," Jesse said. "We don't have to make a decision yet. There are years ahead of us."

Winnie nodded again.

…

In the end, they settled for a small, private ceremony. None of them knew enough people to invite guests anyway. They contented themselves with the idea that, Jesse's family aside, their guests watched from Heaven.

It was late October, so the trees were flaming red and gold. The day was hot, however; more like summer than autumn.

Miles stood as Jesse's Best Man, and his new girlfriend, a young lawyer named Maria, stood as Winnie's Maid of Honor. She would have had Mae, but Mae insisted that the Maid of Honor should not be a married woman. Winnie had smiled at the Old World sensibility of it.

And so they were married by a Justice of the Peace in a public park. They didn't even bother with dressing up, really. The men wore simple suits and ties, and the women wore floral summer dresses. Mae braided roses into Winnie's hair.

"Do you, Jesse Tuck, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, 'til Death do you part?"

"I do."

"And do you, Winnie Foster, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, 'til Death do you part?"

"I do."

"Then by the power vested in me by the State of Ohio, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

Jesse leaned forward and kissed Winnie softly, and the whole world seemed to stop spinning for one glorious moment. Winnie closed her eyes, and a gentle summer breeze picked up, rattling chimes somewhere behind her. And then the kiss was over, and Jesse squeezed her to him in a tight embrace.

Everyone cheered, and they blushed and giggled. But both knew it no longer mattered what either of them had done in their pasts. They would move past it, relying on the strength of their love to overcome the obstacles that they put in their own way. Winnie smiled and chuckled.

"What is it?" Jesse asked

"Everything I hoped for," Winnie said, and handed him an envelope.

"What's this?"

"Open and see."

Jesse frowned and pulled out a small brochure. Inside were several folded confirmation printouts. "What?"

"I'd say it's time we climbed the Eiffel Tower together, don't you think?"

Jesse picked her up and spun her around, then kissed her again by way of answer.

"Winnie Tuck, I'm going to love you until the day I die."


	19. Epilogue: Winnie Speaks

So I thought I'd ended the story, but the characters wouldn't leave me alone. They wanted an epilogue that closed things out with hints of their future together, so a mini-epilogue they (and you) get. :D

If you've enjoyed this story and want to read some of my other writing, I have two other stories currently: Dancing on a Volcano (a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic about Faith), and Queen of Spades (a "miscellaneous books" fic based on the novel "The Passion" by Jeanette Winterson). I also have ideas for about three or four others, but I think I've maxed out at my ability to work on two simultaneously while working a day job (I finally found one! And it even pertains to my major! It's very exciting) and an original novel.

I'm currently further in on Dancing on a Volcano, because honestly I have more of a plan for where it's going. It's not terribly detailed, more a vague chronology of things that happen to characters. Of course, my plan for this story was always sketchy at best and that seemed to work out okay – my outlines consisted mainly of scraps of dialogue, attitudes/emotions to try to invoke in the readers, birth dates, death dates, and dates of major historical events I wanted to work in (not a whole lot else. It was a good challenge, even though it slowed the writing of this down) – but I still like to have some target goal. For this, I always knew what end I was working toward. It makes a difference, as I'm sure you all know. Once I figure out what Queen of Spades is aiming at, it will pick up substantially, as I have a variety of scenes already drafted out for it. :)

Even if you decide not to follow me to my other stories, please drop me a PM (or review, but I actually reply to PMs) with any constructive criticism or other comments you may have about this one as a whole. I may have found a day job, but writing is my true love. I hope to be published eventually, and all feedback I receive really helps with that.

Thank you for taking this journey with me. It's been a fun ride, and I really appreciate that you took the time to make it through the story. :)

* * *

…

Epilogue – August 29, 2010

In the end, as Jesse and I climbed each of the 1,652 steps together, the years that had weighed down on my shoulders seemed to melt away. I felt free again.

He had had lovers. I had loved Alex and Jonathan, in my own way. Jealousy wasn't worth the price of everything we had fought so hard to achieve. It was finally clear to my heart, rather than just my head. I felt dizzy from the freedom of it.

We stood together on the viewing deck of the Eiffel Tower, watching the sun sparkle on the Seine, listening to the bells tolling at Notre Dame. I had never felt so at home, so much like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was hard to descend; I was half afraid that my fears would settle back down onto my shoulders.

Jesse's arm was firm around my waist, supporting me as we made our way down the steep, narrow stairs. It was everything I had dreamed of since I turned seventeen nearly a century before.

"If you could go anywhere," I asked him, "where would you go?"

He turned his face toward the sun as he considered, closing his eyes and smiling. "Nowhere. I'd stay right here."

His answer surprised me. "You've finally decided to put down roots, then?"

"Of course not." His laughter was contagious; I found myself giggling even though I didn't really know why. "You asked where I would go. I don't want to go anywhere that you don't want to go. Where would you go?"

I pulled a map of Europe out of my purse. "Hm. I've always dreamed of seeing Rome," I said, considering out loud. "Or Istanbul. I hear the Hagia Sophia is incredible."

"Then let's go!"

"But we have tickets back to New York for tomorrow. Your parents are expecting us-"

"I don't care; we'll skip the flight. We're only young once, Winnie. We don't have an eternity to wait. I'll call them once we re-route our flight."

The thought of our limited years made my breath catch in my throat, but only for a moment. I was preemptively fearing my fear of death. But that fear had dropped away with all the years as we climbed the stairs of the Eiffel Tower.

I laughed at his impetuous exuberance. It was so much of what I'd fallen in love with. I kissed his cheek and nodded, and he grabbed my hand and led me, running, across streets and sidewalks with careless abandon.

Life goes on, until it doesn't, but the lessons the Tuck family taught me about what is important endure. Since that day in Paris on our honeymoon, Jesse and I have danced our way across the face of the earth, never settling in one place for very long. Tuck's lesson is something we live everyday, conquering our fears in order to try new things.

So there ends my story. The past is past, and the future has yet to be written. I can only hope that one day our children will absorb their grandfather's lessons as completely as Jesse and I have. I feel certain that they must, for it's the very reason for their existence, but who knows? The choice is theirs to make. The choice must be made everyday, to live actively, rather than to let life pass by. Jesse and I can only try to set a positive example.

But for my part, I can't think of a better example than watching two people who will love each other until the day they die.


End file.
